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Market Research Methods For Your Product That Get Results

When you are thinking about market research methods to find new products, most people start with a customer avatar.  The customer avatar is a description of your ideal customer in detail, from their demographics to psychographics, and might even tell a story.  There is much more to marketing to your audience than developing a customer avatar. The avatar is part of the process of getting to know who your customer is, but there is much more to ensure that your marketing gets results. 

market research methods
  • Analyze Your Data – Creating avatars is never going to compete with actual data. You have data regarding your audience and your customers inside your email marketing software, your social media platforms, and analytics on your website.  You can use google analytics to find out the demographics of people who come to your website and google search console to find out what keywords they used to find you.  Tools like Tower Data can tell you the demographics and more of your email subscribers.  Knowing the details can help you find the right words and product pricing to sell your product.
  • Listen to Your Customers – Find more ways to hear what your customers have to say. Conduct more surveys, host more Q and A sessions, and find more ways to listen to and answer their concerns and questions openly. If you email your customers, you can ask them to reply to a question and the ones that do you can have more in-depth conversations with to find out what they are thinking about.  These types of market research methods will give you words and phrases that your ideal customers are using to describe their needs.
  • Build Rapport with Your Customers – When you engage more with your customers, it helps with building that affinity that you need. If your customers feel as if they can relate to each other and you, it really builds the community and trust.  Having a way to contact you on the website is a great start – this can guide you with what is missing on your site or what people are looking for but cannot find.  You can also connect outside of email or your website through videos on social media.
  • Learn Your Customers’ Language – The voice you choose for your brand should be in the language the customer speaks. This is not about UK English versus US English; this is about using the tone of voice and personality that will resonate most with your customers. This is how your customers communicate with each other and talk about your product.  You want to know this so that you can talk about your product the way that they do.  If you call it a soda but your customer calls it a coke, then you won’t be speaking their language and have a barrier to connection.
  • Understand What Your Customers’ Values Are – When you truly get to know your customers, you’ll also get to know what their morals, values, and principles are. The more you can match your brand with theirs, the better.  Market research methods that give you more insight into this are things like Facebook groups and other forums where your customers hang out.  Knowing your mission and values for your company goes a long way to communicate to your customers that your values as a company and brand align with theirs.
  • Conduct Regular Client Research – Don’t research just once and think you know everything. Keep checking the data on a regular basis so that you are always up to date about what they want and how they express it.  Market research methods like google analytics can be reviewed on a weekly or monthly basis to see what is changing and reviewing your ad spend data and keyword information will keep you from wasting money.
  • Put Yourself in Your Customers’ Place – This can be difficult to do sometimes, even if you are technically a member of your audience. The reason is that your thoughts and opinions are very subjective and may not relate to your customers at all. Try to put yourself in their place, but don’t assume you know.  As a matter of fact, it can be difficult to understand what it’s like to be on the outside or a new person in your business space, so when you write your customer avatar, make sure you describe their problem in detail so everyone knows and remembers what it’s like to be looking for the solution that you provide with your product.
  • Study Your Competitors – Continuing to study your competition can give you more insight into your customers too. The more inside information you can get about your competitors, the better. Look at their work and watch closely what they do. Pay attention to their ads and what they are driving traffic to, as well as what social media is getting attention.  You might think of this as spying, but it’s just one of the market research methods you can implement, and as long as you don’t just copy them, you are helping your business by staying on top of the current environment.
  • Learn Your Customers’ Buying Journey – One way to look at your customers is via their buying journey. In fact, if you do create avatars, it’s important to create more than one because a customer in the awareness stage is completely different from a customer in the decision stage or delight stage.  So think through what problems and issues lead to them searching for the solution you provide, but also focus on what they might be trying before finding your solution.  This can help you to bring awareness to your product sooner in the process and build your company’s reputation as an expert in the field.
  • Create an Ideal Customer Avatar – Ok, so I said there is more to market research methods than just doing a customer avatar, but you need to have one as part of your process.  You also need to know exactly who your ideal customer is, so it helps to create a description of a fictitious ideal customer profile. Who exactly is the person who will get the most from your products or services? What are they thinking and doing that lead them to your product?  Describe that person and adjust it as you get access to data once you make sales. 

Researching your target audience is one of the most important ways you can inform your overall marketing strategy, the content you develop, the products you create, and so much more. Take the time to incorporate more of these ideas in your market research methods so that your avatars and customer profiles become even more effective.  

When you are ready to launch your product or if you are ready to get your product listed and selling on the world’s largest marketplace, contact us to learn more about how we can help you build a strong presence online and sell more than ever.

Product Development Ideas For Your Amazon Business and Private Label Brand

Whenever you want to create a new physical product the first question should always be about what the problems are that you want to solve. When you focus on solutions to problems first, the rest of the development process is a lot easier, and it’s also easier to market solutions than products. When you are developing product development ideas, think about how your product solves problems for your customers and then find people with that problem and everything is right with the world, right?  Maybe.

product development ideas

First, come up with a list of problems for the market you want to create a solution for.  Even if you already have a product, think of related items.  You can do this by talking to customers, doing surveys with them, and participating in Facebook groups or other areas where they might hang out. 

Then, once you know what the solution is, see who else has created a solution. Use what is out there to figure out where the gaps are in the ideas so that you can make yourself that much better. You can find the gaps for your product development ideas by researching related or similar products on Amazon and reading the reviews and questions. 

Research your audience, your competitors, and any industry-specific authorities that you can find. Always take the time to plan your product development, as this will pay off in spades once you are in the launching phase. Once you have found other people’s solutions, you can start asking the right questions to figure out the direction of your product development or private label product.

Questions to Answer to Get Ideas For Private Label Products

Some questions to address when you are creating products and you need to come up with ideas are:

  • What substitutes can you create for that? – For example, if you teach people how to eat a vegan diet, you can offer substitutes like plant milk and cheese to help. You can think about other ways to do the same thing, like what can you use to make a dog bed instead of the regular product?  Or other types of the same type of product – like wet vs dry dog foods. These make easy options and great product development ideas.
  • What solutions can you combine to make it more valuable? – If you already have some solutions you offer, how can you repackage and combine them to make them more valuable? Does your customer automatically combine a couple of things to make it a complete set and how can you make it into a kit or new type of product?
  • How can this solution be adapted to work for more things? – For example, if you created an eBook with a text-based course with it, can you adapt it to work in another way, such as by turning the book into a video and the course into a quiz? You can also think about other media – if it’s a book, think about audio or video for example.  If it’s a physical product, can you make a teaching or training product that would sell too?  
  • How can this solution be used for other reasons? – Sometimes you create a solution for one thing, but it can be used for other things too. For example, if you have a product about How to Start a Virtual Assistant Business, you can change it to How to Start a Web Design Business with just a few additions and changes of keywords.  Try to think of more ways that people can use your product by looking at other related or similar products and their reviews.   
  • How can this solution be reformatted, repurposed, rearranged, or reversed? – Whenever you can change how the solution (yours or someone else’s) is presented, it can appear as if it’s an entirely new product.  As your product sells and gets feedback, what does version 1.5 or 2.0 look like?  Are there related topics that you could add to your product to improve it?
  • Who is the customer who wants and needs this product? – You need to be able to describe who needs the solution and why. There could be multiple niches that need it too. Think about this deeply and really seek to understand your consumer.  You should understand demographics as well as psychographics to really have a complete picture of the person using your product.  

Once you’ve brainstormed and come up with product development ideas for some new and improved solutions to the problems you’ve discovered, don’t jump right into product creation. Instead, start testing out the ideas with your audience first.  Do this by asking them questions, getting feedback on early designs and prototypes.  If you don’t have an audience (who does at first?) then go into groups that have your customers (not other sellers) and ask for some feedback.  You should be in these groups anyway to understand the problems your buyers are having and you can develop relationships with some very active members to get some beta testers that will really promote your product if they like it.

When you are creating new products, you can create products that are innovative and brand new, but you can also create ones that simply build on the design and ideas of someone else or that solve problems in an incremental way. When you take the time to plan it out, you never know; you could create the next killer product that disrupts the market in ways you never considered.  Think about how much cell phones have changed in a few years – and realize that incremental changes can make a big difference over time.

When you are building your Amazon business, you should make sure you are doing it right with help creating listings and making sure you are following all the rules to keep your account in tip-top shape.  Consider working with an Amazon consultant to make the most out of any dollars you spend by spending them wisely!

9 Ways To Find New Opportunities For Your Business

Have you ever met a person who is always ready for the best opportunities in life? They seem to always find good deals for everything and seem to have the golden touch. Well, the truth is, finding and recognizing new opportunities for your business is a skill that you can develop over time.

  • Let the World Know About Your Business – First, you must let the universe and the people you know realize that you are open to new opportunities in the expertise you have. Tell people what you want and what you would like, and people will start sending you information before you know it.  Consider adding the information to your email signature and change your Facebook personal or business page to reflect the new information.
find new opportunities for your business
  • Get Comfortable with Discomfort – Think about the things you’ve learned to do in your life that at first were hard. They felt odd. Your body did not feel right making that move to hit that golf ball or to stand in front of people and give a talk. Everything you do that’s worthwhile will make you uncomfortable until you learn how to do it or get through it. That’s normal. So it might feel uncomfortable to launch a new product.  But doing the research and knowing your audience makes it much easier. When you find new opportunities for your business, it's important to give them a chance to see if they will lead to more value for your customers.
  • Promote Your Knowledge and Expertise – When you want opportunities, it’s a good idea to promote your knowledge and expertise so that you get the attention of others. This will help boost your brand authority and help people trust you more. Letting people know what you can do or the value of your product happens over time as you build your brand equity.  You can do this through email marketing or social media connections.
  • Keep Records of Your Brand Awards – Keeping a record of your brand’s awards and accomplishments ensures that you can not only help other people notice your strengths, but you can also help your customers become stronger in their confidence with your brand.  When you win an award, it says a lot about your brand, and customers see your value.  Even when you get a testimonial – which is like an award for your business – prominently display it on your website or in a newsletter.  Don’t be shy!
  • Give Other People Recognition – If you want other people to think about you, then you need to think about them too. Give them recognition for a good job done or anything that you noticed. They may do the same for you someday. If you have a customer story about how your brand has served them or made their life better, it’s a great way to talk about your brand without being too salesy.  When you hear the recognition and testimonials for your brand, it helps you to see more ways that you can find new opportunities for your business. 
  • Identify Ways You Can Improve – Perform a SWOT analysis on your brand. Knowing your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats is a great way to find out where you can improve in some areas of your business and also see the bigger picture of the competition.  This will very likely spark some ideas about what you can do that is new and innovative.  Other ways to find new opportunities for your business, try to think outside of your normal competitors, and see related products as an opportunity to connect or work together and make a great connection.  
  • Find a Mentor – When you know what your goals are and how you see yourself in the future, it can help you get there if you can find someone who has achieved success and can act as a mentor for you. Mentors can be great for different parts of your business at different times, it’s not a one size fits all.  You might have a financial mentor and a sales mentor and more.  Each area of your business can benefit from some outside help every now and then.  Mentors can often see opportunities that you might miss because you don’t have the same frame of reference.
  • Do Your Research – Whenever you want to take advantage of anything, it’s best that you do your due diligence and learn everything you can about the issue. That way, you can make choices based on knowledge and not just assumptions. Always remember that you don’t know what you don’t know.  Talk to customers and potential buyers about things they might be interested in from your brand.  How do they see your brand?  Consider joining relevant Facebook groups with your customers to learn their issues and the language they use to talk about their struggles.
  • Make and Keep Contacts – Throughout your life, you’re going to encounter a variety of people. Ensure that you value those contacts by staying in their memory. And that way, when the right thing comes along, you’ll know who to call. Put them into a CRM with notes about what they do and what they are knowledgeable about.  When you find something that might interest them in their area, send it to them – either by email or snail mail.  It keeps you top of mind and fosters that connection.  

New opportunities are going to come your way every single day if you know what you want and understand how to study the ramifications of your choices. Be ready to take a chance even when it’s uncomfortable and seems risky. The only way to succeed is to let yourself feel a little uncomfortable as you grow with each new opportunity. 

One thing that might feel like a risk as a brand is launching your business and brand on Amazon.  It also sounds like a lot of work.  But it doesn’t have to be.  You can find excellent partners to help you every step of the way and make your business even more profitable by making wise choices.  Try a few of these ideas out and let me know what you think.  

How Does Selling On Amazon Work For Brands?

Brands can leverage the traffic of Amazon for their own sales by selling directly on the platform.  Doing this can achieve more brand recognition and improve your sales and profitability, but it needs to be done the right way.  You might wonder how does selling on Amazon work, but getting your first sale can be easier than you think.

how does selling on Amazon work for brands

Individual Vs Professional Account

Your first decision is whether you want an individual or professional seller account.  I would recommend signing up with an email address that is different than your regular amazon buyer account so that if other people need access you are not giving them the keys to your personal buying habits.  This is your first hurdle to learning how does selling on Amazon work.

With an individual account, you can create an account for free and do not get charged unless something sells.  You can create new listings for your products, but you pay an extra $0.99 whenever something sells in addition to the selling fees.  You also have limited reporting and cannot use external software (usually) to manage your account.  If you plan to sell a few items (less than 40) per month as a hobby, this can be the right choice.

The professional account does have a fee of $39.99/month, so if you plan to sell 40 or more items per month, this is the right choice.  You also get more robust reporting and the ability to use 3rd party apps and tools.  You also can upload listings using a spreadsheet, which can come in very handy if you are making new listings for the catalog.

As a brand, you will likely want to create listings on Amazon for your products, regardless of whether you allow other sellers to sell your products on Amazon.  You can control the way the listing looks and the actual copy when you create the listing.  Having the ability to upload a spreadsheet to create listings is not only quicker but when someone changes your listing (it happens more than you think), you can re-upload the spreadsheet and “fix” the issues.

Shipping Yourself or FBA (Fulfillment By Amazon)

How does selling on Amazon work using FBA? FBA is a way of selling on Amazon where you ship the items into Amazon’s warehouses (and you pay to ship it there at a very reduced rate) and Amazon stocks the item and ships it when sold.  It does carry additional “pick and pack” fees that are close to the cost to ship it yourself.  It can depend on what you are selling on Amazon, but the convenience can often outweigh the extra fees.  Amazon also manages the customer service aspect so if an item is late, doesn’t deliver or other issues, they will work with the customer on a resolution.

You might wonder if it saves a lot of time to sell on FBA?  When you sell using FBA, you ship items together in a box, one time.  So if it’s 20 different widgets, you ship them all to the warehouse in one box.  You might have to ship different amounts to different warehouses (you don’t get to pick which one it goes to) but usually, if you ship 18 or more of the same item, it ships to the same warehouse.  Instead of taking the time to individually pack, label, and ship items individually to customers, you are doing it more in bulk.  

If you are a Prime member, you know that members prefer to buy Prime offerings.  Even when a merchant fulfilling the same item might be a dollar or two cheaper.  So it results in more sales with less effort.  

If you ship items from your location, it’s called FBM or Fulfilled By Merchant.  You are responsible for making sure the items get shipped daily regardless of the number of orders and your staffing.  This can place limits on 1-2 person operations because it’s hard to take vacations or days off if you have to ship product daily – Monday through Friday.  Shipping costs depend on what class of mail but you might spend anywhere from $4-$20 shipping an individual item.

How Can Brands Sell On Amazon?

How does selling on Amazon work for brands? As a brand, you are in many ways just like a regular retailer.  There are fees associated with each item that sells, so you often find higher prices on Amazon because the seller needs to recoup the fee and a profit.  As a manufacturer, you can have an advantage because you have a lower cost than someone who purchases the product wholesale.  This might allow you to sell the product at retail prices and make a higher margin.

The fees that Amazon charges for selling are easy to calculate using the FBA Revenue Calculator.  If you do not already have the item in stock, you can find something similar to the product you want to sell and it will give a good estimate.  The fees for selling on Amazon are related to the price of the item, so a higher priced item will have a higher fee.  You will need to plan on higher fees with FBA but the ease of selling through FBA often makes up for it.

How Can Brands Control Their Listings?

The best way to control your listing and what it contains is to establish a brand registry account.  This can be done if you have a trademark for your product and submit an application.  Amazon verifies the trademark and establishes the account.  This is not the same as an Amazon selling account and can be done regardless of your having a selling account.  Setting up a brand registry is the first step to controlling your listings.

Once established, this does not gate your listings or prevent sellers from selling your genuine product.  This does allow you to add video and EBC (enhanced brand content) to your listings that has been shown to increase conversions and sales.  This is one of the biggest features of having brand registry.  You are also able to use Sponsored Brands PPC and have the ability to advertise in placements that you cannot use in regular sponsored product ads.  You also can have a brand “store” where you feature your story and more about your brand in addition to your products.  This can drive more brand loyalty and sales.  

Selling on Amazon can be confusing and getting started is not always easy, but with a partner, you can find your way around the platform.  If you need an Amazon consultant to help you with setting up your account or launching PPC, schedule a call with us to learn more.  

Ten Effective Business Growth Strategies For Brands In 2020

You need to breathe some new life into your business, and these ten business growth strategies for brands will get your mind going on ways to improve your business. Starting a successful business is one thing – keeping a business going and growing it is a lot more difficult. But if you understand going in what it takes, it’s not hard either. 

Thankfully, there are so many ways to grow your business now using online marketing. If you’ve created a good business that solves problems for your audience, you can succeed using these ten effective business growth strategies for 2020. 

10 effective business growth strategies for brands in 2020

Business Growth Strategies

  1. Automate Your Customer Review Process to Get More – Automation in all aspects is important, but one thing you can definitely put on automation is getting customer reviews. Set up your emails to ask for a review by including the request and link to your review page. Ensure that it goes out to them after they’ve had enough time and encouraging emails from you to use the product. Use reviews in your marketing efforts. 
  1. Publish and Promote More Long-Form Evergreen Content – Content longer than 3000 words gets more views, more shares, and more interest. Creating and publishing in-depth, long-form content will improve your authority quotient exponentially.  These can be product training or teaching blog posts that help your buyer or customer.  It can also help them decide if your product is the right thing for them when they see it laid out.  
  1. Focus More on List Building – When you first come into contact with your ideal customer, try to get them on your list more than trying to sell to them directly. Focus on pulling people to get on your list who are aware of their problem and you. In this way, you can learn more from them while also marketing your products and services to them more directly. An email list is a perfect way to warm up prospects.  You can build brand awareness, help them understand the problem you solve, and know if your product is the right one for them to use.
  1. Reward Your Loyal Customers – Keeping a customer around longer is always a better choice than spending time and money getting new customers. For this reason, create products to sell to them after they’ve become customers and focus on rewarding them for their loyalty to you. For example, give them discounts before you give a new customer a discount. While it can be tempting to go after new customers, it can benefit your brand a great deal when you get incremental sales from current customers.  On Amazon, they often recommend related products and when your customers buy them together it improves you exposure to customers.  
  1. Focus on Community Building – Connect and engage more with your audience because it’ll make it easier for you to figure out how to solve their problems and provide a lot of value to them. Plus, from their end, it makes them feel more trusting about your solutions.  When you engage more with your customers and audience, you begin to understand clearly what they are interested in and what issues they have that you can solve.  This can be as easy as conducting surveys with your email list or participating in relevant Facebook groups.  When your brand is present in those areas will engender you more to your customers.
  1. Know and Represent Your Values and Your Mission Consistently – Decision making is so much simpler if you know what your principles and values are and understand your mission. Take the time to figure out so that everything you do appears consistent, which will elicit trust from your market.  If you know what your values are for the company and where you are heading, you can easily decide if an opportunity is right for you.  Even if you don’t decide to sell on Amazon directly, you can determine if other courses of action like having other resellers selling your product on Amazon is a good idea.
  1. Offer Your Customers What They Need at the Time They Need It – When you take the time to do the research and know what your customers want and need through each stage of their buying journey, you’ll be a lot more successful.  Ask people who have purchased why they bought and what made them decide to buy.  This helps you understand the buying process for your buyers.  You can also ask them how the product is used in their day.  Then when you are writing copy for emails or listings, you can describe the uses for the product to your ideal customer in a clear way.  You will seem to be reading their minds but you just listened and offered them the solution that they needed.  
  1. Pay for Marketing and Advertising Strategically – Once you know that your business concept will work, you’re making money, and you’re growing (but not fast enough), it’s time to choose to pay for advertising. Do work with someone who knows what they’re doing, especially on Amazon.  On Amazon, you can build the sales and connect with more customers at a lower cost using their PPC platform but it’s easy to overspend.  
  1. Learn About and Implement Search Engine Optimization Religiously – SEO is an important strategy to learn because it’s so important for search engines. But even more importantly, the process helps you ensure that your content fits your customers along with making it findable.  SEO also applies to your Amazon listings.  You need to build strong keyword rich listings that talk about the features and benefits of your products.  You can paint clear pictures in your customer’s minds about how to use the products just in the words you choose.  But SEO on Amazon can be complicated, so it’s best to work with a partner if you need help.  
  1. Creating More Landing Pages and Launch More Offers – More offers really do mean more money and growth if they’re truly relevant and add value for your customers. Focus efforts on product creation so that you can launch more often to grow faster.  Taking the process of managing your Amazon account off your plate gives you more time as an owner to focus on growing all of your business, not stuck in the weeds.

When you look at this list, it becomes clear that one of the most important aspects of growing your business in 2020 is to create, publish, and promote more compelling and relevant content, while focusing on list building and promotion. These business growth strategies are not that different from the past, but you do need to ensure your content is high quality to succeed today. 

Building that content depends on your understanding of your customers and their goals and desires.  When you spend time connecting with them, asking them why they bought and what they are using this product for, you can communicate with your customers in their own language.

If you need help with building your brand and increasing your sales and profitability, let’s talk.

Maximize Your Day with Time Blocking

One way to ensure success is to set goals and make plans from those goals that get into your schedule each day, then implement the plan according to the schedule. This is best accomplished by using a method called time blocking. You can increase your productivity substantially with properly executed time blocking and using your planner.  Using time blocking instead of just a to-do list can help you get much more done.

What Is Time Blocking?

Time blocking is a method that increases productivity, and it can work for almost anyone. If you like having things scheduled, it’s possible you already naturally use a form of time blocking. You can improve your efficiency by understanding how to prioritize all your activities and not just your appointments. Time blocking is a process to account for the activities of the day and keep you on track by keeping your flow instead of switching to different tasks all the time.

time blocking

How Does Time Blocking Work?

The way time blocking works is that ideally, you will schedule your day in thirty-minute to two-hour increments. You should add everything you do during any given day to your block schedule to ensure you’ve set aside enough time for your entire life, not just your work schedule.  Some people use the Pomodoro technique to set up time blocks, usually as a 25-minute working block and a 5-minute break.  

Start by listing out what you need to do for the day and how much time it will take.  You can also prioritize the tasks by what needs to get done first and then next so that you are completing the most important tasks for each day.  Doing this before you leave for the day when the remaining tasks and any new thoughts are in your head to create the list for the next morning.  Sometimes you can do this first thing in the morning if that works better for you.

Reasons to Use Block Scheduling For Time

Time block scheduling is good at helping you prioritize your day. When you make a list of the tasks that you need to do during a day and then organize it into time blocks, you’re much more likely to put it in the right order so that you can get each thing completed in a timely manner, but also efficiently.  When you plan for the day, many people find that they are able to get more done in the same amount of time.  

If you tend to get sidetracked easily, it can help you because you can switch blocks around if you do each thing on your daily list, for example.  And you are better able to focus because you have planned what you are going to do so you are aware that you will get other tasks done.  If you are flitting around looking at different tasks and starting but not finishing them, you get a little bit of many different things done but not enough to make the difference you probably want to.  

Making The System Work 

The best way to ensure that time block scheduling will work for you is to get used to using a calendar or daily planner to help you make choices each day. Know your goals, plan ahead so you don’t have bottlenecks, and focus on the most important priorities earlier in the day so that you ensure those get done. Don’t be afraid to take breaks because that is important too. 

Time blocking basically takes your to-do list and tells it what is going to get done and when.  This is invaluable.  When you have a list but it’s not prioritized, you probably are jumping around and doing a little bit of a bunch of things.  In this case, you plan to work and complete a project or a specific task and then move on to the next.  It’s designed to give you focus on what you need to work on and complete.

Use a System to Time Block

Don’t rely on your mind to remember your schedule. Turn to a system like Trello.com or Basecamp.com, or another project management system. Even if you just use Google Calendar, it’s important to set it up and visually look at it to help avoid conflicts with your time. As you use time block scheduling and adjust the schedule over time, you’ll perfect each day and end up maximizing your productivity in the process. 

You might be thinking that your day is not the same each time so it’s hard to set up time blocks that work.  When you start, it won’t be perfect.  But if you look at the tasks you need to complete for the week, and break them down into what you will accomplish in a day, then you can block that time and work on the task over the week.  Instead of just trying to do it a little at a time, you are “single tasking” which can be even more productive than multi-tasking.  

It can also take a lot of time and effort to get started time blocking.  You can start with part of your day or even just one day a week.  If you need to do emails for your customers for an upcoming sale, you can time block a section of your day in a week and write those all at once.  Then, when you are used to doing sections of your week, you can start even more granular planning.  You should even plan blocks for the “fires” or urgent things that come up in a day to be able to handle those.  Over time, you will get better at estimating the amount of time it will take to complete tasks and improve your schedule. 

Specialized Tools

A few tools that work well with or are made especially for time blocking are HourStack.io and SkedPal.com. These block scheduling tools will help you set up your schedule fast and even help automate scheduling for you. You can integrate these programs with Google Calendar, Outlook, and others, so they’re very easy to incorporate into what you already have. 

Time block scheduling is the perfect way to plan your days and even longer projects that may require multiple days. For example, if you have a conference in the second week of June, that time block schedule will be totally different than your normal day. It’s very adjustable and works for almost anyone, whether you’re naturally organized or not. 

This is a great way to plan to do the most important work and items on your list.  When you have your list, if it’s more hours than your workday (if it’s too many tasks and not enough time), you can cull out the less important tasks for another day or give them to another person.  

When you are running a small business, you need all the help and time you can get.  If managing your account on Amazon is becoming overwhelming, schedule a call to talk about your account and how we can help.  The call is free and only takes a little of your time to make a big difference. 

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