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Part 8 in a series of Internet Marketing videos featuring David Congreave and his assistant Beth Rudkin. This week David explains how to manage a busy workload, without subjecting yourself to a caffeine induced coma.
DAVID
Hi I’m David Congreave and this is my assistant, Bethany Rudkin.
DAVID
What is wrong with you?
BETHANY
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
DAVID
Nothing?
DAVID
You’ve overdone it on the coffee again, haven’t you?
BETHANY
No, I’m just excited to be at work.
BETHANY
Yeah, that was a bit of a long shot wasn’t it?
DAVID
I’m sure we’ve had this conversation before. Limit yourself to six cups of coffee before lunch and then switch to decaf.
BETHANY
I’m sorry, I’ve just got lots to do and I work faster with a little caffeine in my system.
DAVID
A little caffeine, yes. You look like you’ve consumed an entire pot.
BETHANY
So what do you suggest?
DAVID
Well a simple idea is to make a list of the jobs you want to do and then order them in terms of preference. So the jobs you find the least interesting at one end, and the jobs you enjoy the most at the other. Then work your way through the list, starting with the job you least want to do.
BETHANY
But I don’t want to do the jobs I don’t want to do, cuz I don’t want to do them.
DAVID
Well what tends to happen is that you work quickly on the jobs you don’t enjoy to get them out of the way, and to get to the jobs you enjoy doing. You’ll find the list gets completed faster, and you’re less likely to end up putting off jobs you don’t want to do until tomorrow.
BETHANY
That’s good. Any other tips?
DAVID
You could stop bunking off work to go on YouTube to watch LOLcats.
DAVID
Yeah, that was a bit of a long shot wasn’t it?
BETHANY
I think so.
DAVID
Well, if you’re really insistent on using caffeine, you can get it into your system faster by eating caffeinated sweets.
BETHANY
Excellent.
DAVID
Hmm. Maybe not. As Bethany has ably demonstrated, caffeine is no substitute for good time management. See you next week.
Part 7 in a series of Internet Marketing videos featuring David Congreave and his assistant Beth Rudkin. This week David is back from vacation to discuss how to get help with your business.
DAVID
Hi I’m David Congreave and this is my assistant, Bethany Rudkin. I’m very pleased to be back from vacation and to be able to get back to work. So how did you get on in my absence?
BETHANY
Great. I worked really hard.
DAVID
Really?
BETHANY
Yep.
DAVID
Good. Well this week I’m going to talk about how to get people to help you work on your business, without having to spend a lot of money in the process.
Three methods you can try:
1) Share Your Profits
2) Barter
3) Partner With Someone
Give those a try. Thank you for watching.
BETHANY
Wait, I have another method you can try.
DAVID
For getting people to help you work on your business?
BETHANY
Yes.
DAVID
Without having to spend money?
BETHANY
Yes.
DAVID
Really?
BETHANY
Yes.
DAVID
OK – go ahead.
BETHANY
Invite some younger members of your family around, and get them to do some of your work in exchange for candy.
DAVID
Seriously?
BETHANY
Yep.
DAVID
That would never work.
BETHANY
I’ve already tried it, it works every time.
DAVID
So far, maybe. I doubt you could bribe everyone with candy.
BETHANY
OK. How about you do the accounts this month, in exchange for… CANDY!!!
BETHANY
Accounts first candy later.
BETHANY
As the saying goes, “Work smarter, not harder”. Thanks for watching and we’ll see you next week.
Part 6 in a series of Internet Marketing videos featuring David Congreave and his assistant Beth Rudkin. This week David is on vacation so Beth is joined by Henry.
BETHANY
Riboflavin? Oh sorry, I didn’t see you there.
Hi, I’m Beth Rudkin and, as David is on vacation, he has been replaced with Henry. Say hello Henry.
But don’t worry, David left me behind a script to read, so this video will be just as boring as usual.
Dear viewers. I’m on vacation this week so, in advance, I’ve written, blah, blah, blah, boring, boring, boring…
Don’t worry, you’re really not missing anything. Instead, why don’t I tell you about my favourite coffee break game?
Hedgehog Launch!
It’s an excellent time waster, suitable for coffee breaks, tea breaks, lunch breaks, snack breaks, break breaks… basically any time in between working. So check out the link at the end of the video.
But I suppose I should also suggest something that will make you more productive.
One of my favourite time-saving tools is called Type Pilot. It allows you to save paragraphs and phrases that you use on a regular basis and assign keywords to them.
So, for example, I could assign my email signature the keyword sig1 and then, every time I type sig1, in any program, TypePilot will paste in my signature.
You can use this for phrases in an email that you use a lot, such as “Thank you for your email”, “Please let me know if I can be of further assistance”, “Did you watch Glee last night?
But there are lots of other uses as well. It’s good for lines of HTML code, current date, remembering passwords, and so on.
Trust me, once you’ve used this for a couple of days, you’ll wonder how you ever managed without it. So check out the link at the end of the video.
Thank you for watching. Next week Henry will have been replaced by something even more boring.
Part 5 in a series of Internet Marketing videos featuring David Congreave and his assistant Beth Rudkin. This week Beth experiments for dress-down Friday. Make sure you watch to the end!
DAVID
Hi. I’m David Congreave and this is my assistant, Bethany Rudkin.
BETHANY
I didn’t know we did dress-down Fridays.
DAVID
This is a HOME business. Every day is dress-down day.
BETHANY
Really?
DAVID
Yes, Really
BETHANY
Excellent
BETHANY rushes off. DAVID looks anxious like he may have made a mistake
DAVID
Anyway, the reason I’m dressed down is because, tomorrow I’m taking a weeks vacation. So while we’re on the subject, let’s talk about how to take a vacation without worrying about your home business falling apart while you’re away.
The temptation most people fall into is to take their work with them. That is a mistake. Even if you only plan to check on your emails while you’re away, it’s too easy to get sucked into doing more and then you’re no longer a vacation, you’re just working in a different office.
A vacation is supposed to refresh you and recharge your batteries. To accomplish that, you need to be able to leave work behind altogether.
Most of the time, unless you’re taking a really long vacation, the only things to really worry about are customer support and emails. If you’ve already outsourced these, then you’re set. Just leave a mobile number with your virtual assistant to use in emergencies, and you’re all set.
If you don’t have a virtual assistant then there is a way to obtain a temporary assistant while you’re on holiday, without having to pay huge amounts of cash.
DAVID
So we’re talking about how to find someone to look after your emails and customer support while you’re on vacation.
B-FIZZLE
Simple. Use Elance.
DAVID
Elance is one possibility but a faster, and probably less expensive, way is to ask a family member to step in. Ideally this should be someone between the ages of 12-15.
B-FIZZLE
Seriously?
DAVID
Seriously. Any born after 1995 probably already knows more about computers and the Internet than you ever will. And all they really need to know is how to you’re your computer on, access your customer support admin area and how to download and sort your emails.
B-FIZZLE
But won’t they have to learn all about your business?
DAVID
No. All they really need to know is how to identify the difference between emails that can wait until you get back, and those that need dealing with straight away. Most of the time, all they’ll be doing is sending a standard email reply that says “David’s on vacation, if this is an urgent matter please call me on…”
B-FIZZLE
And then presumably they can call you if there’s something they can’t handle?
DAVID
Exactly.
B-FIZZLE
But you’d still pay them?
DAVID
Sure, you can work it out at something like an hour a day, so it doesn’t have to cost you a fortune.
B-FIZZLE
Cool. So who are you hiring while you’re away?
DAVID
No-one, I already hired you.
B-FIZZLE
Oh yes… so does that mean I’m in charge while you’re away.
DAVID
Yes… Yes… You’ll manage right?
B-FIZZLE
Of course, I’m a professional.
DAVID
Good.
B-FIZZLE
Fo sheezy.
DAVID
What?
B-FIZZLE
Fo sheezy.
B-FIZZLE
How do you turn your laptop on?
B-FIZZLE
Don’t sweat it gee. B-Fizzle will keep the business is business, kna’ am’ sayin? Peace up.
Have you ever noticed how hard it is to contact Internet Marketers? It seems that, the more success a marketer achieves, the more fences go up between them and the rest of the pack.
If you’ve ever tried to contact a marketer you respected and got snarled up in layers of customer support and useless contact forms, then you know what I’m talking about.
We’ve felt for a while that there needs to be a way for you to be able to communicate with us more freely, and yet still be practical for us to handle. To that end, we’ve setup a special contact forum that, as well as allowing you to communicate with other Lucid fans, will allow you to get your questions, concerns, criticisms and suggestions, in front of us.
