​Do you often say there are not enough hours in the day? Do you often wonder where the time has gone? Do you regularly think that you have achieved very little in your working day?  By making a few small changes you can greatly change the way you work and how much you can achieve in a day.

​There are lots of things that you can do to help improve your productivity but these 10 top tips are a good starting point:
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1. Focus on the number of minutes in the day. There are 1,440 minutes in a day, so use them productively.
2. Set daily priorities – identify your most important tasks and focus on them completely for 2 hours at the start of the day.
3. Don’t use “To do lists” - schedule everything in your online calendar.
4. Make time for dinner with the family – schedule it in your diary/online calendar!
5. Use a notebook – clear your mind of detail – and then add the “to do’s” to your online calendar
6. Only check your email/social media accounts three times a day – schedule times throughout the day to read and respond to email.
7. Avoid meetings at all cost – only hold meetings if they are really needed and keep them short. 
8. Say “no” to almost everything – say no if it is outside your core area of work.
9. Follow the 80/20 rule – 80% of outcomes come from 20% of activities – so identify the 20% and ignore the rest.
10. Delegate or outsource almost everything – identify your key strengths, utilise them and outsource the rest to someone like Sunflower VA!

If you need help in your business to allow you to be more productive with your business Marketing then please get in touch with Sunflower VA.

​If you are in the design and development stage of your new website, there are a few key things to consider:

1. Ensure that the website you build is desktop and mobile friendly as more than 70% of website visitors now come directly from mobile!
2. Before you start creating your website, it is a good idea to create a diagram that shows the structure of your website - including the proposed content, navigation and layout of your webpages.
3. ​Decide on your colour theme, fonts, graphics and page layouts and ensure they are simple, and consistent throughout your website. 
4. You need to ensure your site to easy for visitors to navigate around and as user-friendly as possible.  Don't make users navigate through too many layers of your website to find the information they want.
5. Ensure that your pages load as fast as possible – visitors don’t wait for slow loading pages. Simple steps can be taken to ensure your pages load faster, including ensuring that your images are optimised for web and ensuring that all your links work.  Images taken on your mobile phone must be optimised for the web before adding them to your website.
6. Writing for the web is very different from writing for print.  People only skim read on the internet and spend less than 15 seconds on your website, so make sure you give them everything they are looking for in as few words as possible.
7. When adding links to your website ensure they work. Broken links show visitors and search engines such as Google that a site is not maintained and your search engine rankings will begin to fall.
8. Avoid using “click here” links, instead make the link clear by saying something like - Find out more about our user-friendly websites. The visitor then knows what they will find when clicking on the link.
9. The Equality Act 2010 makes it illegal for a website provider to discriminate against a disabled person by refusing to provide a service that is generally available. There are some simple adjustments you can make to your website to make it easier for disabled people to use including attaching a text description (alt tags) to every image and link on the site. This means that blind users, who rely on a browser that reads out the contents of the webpage, can hear a description of what an image is and where a link will take them.
10. Your website is your "online marketing brochure" so make sure you add your contact details. Some people prefer to pick up the phone, others prefer to email and some like to fill in a form – so offer a number of ways for visitors to get in touch with you.
11. Finally, ensure that you get someone to check the spelling on your website before you set it live. Even the best people can add “adn” instead of “and”.  People do judge websites and businesses by the quality of their spelling.

​If you would like help in building your website or online marketing brochure then please get in touch with Sunflowerva.

One of the main benefits of using a Virtual Marketing Assistant in your business is the savings to you. By working with a VA you will save on the expense of hiring a full-time employee, which includes the time and money spent on interviews and training.  You will also be saving on employee benefits such as health benefits and tax savings as a VA is responsible for their own book-keeping and taxes.

As your VA is generally tends to work off site, it saves you the expense of purchasing a new desk, computer and providing office space.  

As you only pay for the time spent on specific projects you can easily budget for the projects that are of a high priority to your business. At SunflowerVA we offer a selection of monthly packages which will help with your budgeting.

My background is in PR & Marketing and I love the variety of clients I work alongside, hence the decision to set up Sunflower in 2007.

If you need help with your business Marketing just get in touch.

How we can help?

We have been asked to help businesses with the following:

Website design for smaller businesses/business start-ups. Many new business start-ups have a limited budget – our user-friendly 5 page websites/online marketing brochures are a great way to start to promote your business. As your business grows, you can grow your website.

Often business start-ups have great products and services but they are not always sure about how to promote their business. We offer a Marketing 1:1 in which we will discuss your target customers, look at your branding, do a website review (or discuss about how you intend to use your website) and agree which social media platforms are best your business.

Once you have decided which social media platforms are right for your business, it is often time consuming to set up them up on your computer.  We can set these up for you, show you how to effectively manage them if time is too short and provide you with ideas on how to reach your target customers through effective social media posts. 

When do you last get in touch with your customers? Perhaps you should consider putting together an email marketing campaign.  We can create your e-newsletter template and send it to your subscriber list, thereby keeping your clients up-to-date with news and new offerings from your business.

​If there is something else that you need help with in your business in terms of marketing support, please get in touch. I am just a phone call away!

Do you know who your target audience is? If not, then you could be spending a lot of time targeting the wrong people. So how do you know who your ideal customer is and how do you then attract that customer?

The goal is to paint a picture of who your ideal customer is. You’ll likely have other types of customers, but focus on the ones that you enjoy working with, and who you want more of:

• Who is my ideal customer in terms of age, gender, education, location?
• What other sorts of products do they buy that relate to mine?
• If you’re B2B, what role does your customer have in their company?
• Where do they get their information about brands? Online? Print? Television? Friends?
• How did they find your company?
• What’s important to them?
• What do they think of the value of your product or service?  You don’t know – just ask. People love to help.

Then review your brand message. What you say about your products or services will either compel or repel your "perfect customers". What is unique about you? What makes you different from your competitors? That is why I encourage my clients to clarify their message before we start on their website design. social media marketing or e-newsletters.

​Once you've gone through the exercise of identifying your perfect customer, you need to find them. To do so, you should explore where the conversations are taking place. Where are your potential customers discussing their issues and problems? Where are they looking for solutions?

Where you might find your perfect customers

Search engines like Google use keywords to attract customers and to search for customer problems which you may have the answer to. For example, if you are a florist, you need to search for phrases such as “How do I keep my wedding bouquet fresh?" Then, comment on discussions that are happening within those search results.

Set up internet alerts. You can use web alerts to get notified when new content appears relating to your key words

Industry magazines, blogs, or forums. Find out which are the most popular & active communities in your industry and find ways to add value into those relevant conversations. (Find these through internet searches, trade shows or social media referrals) Customers trying to find an answer to their problems will be found in these places.

Facebook. Search Facebook to find relevant business pages. For example, if you are a florist, search for pages that discuss holidays, weddings and other similar life events.

Twitter hashtag conversations. Search for popular hashtags to identify relevant conversations. Using the florist again you might use #Sayitwithflowers. Once you find the conversations, you can offer expert advice to meet new prospects.

LinkedIn groups. Search for industry-related groups that your company can join and become part of those conversations. For example, as a commercial florist, you can join a hotel décor, interior design, or venue discussion group. Again, offer advice, tips and expert insights, but don't overtly sell your product or service.

Instagram for the florist!  Set up your account and start to post images of you buying and creating your bouquets. You might also create short videos explaining the types of flowers you are using and why - adding to your expertise.