If you haven’t yet watched any of The Lucid Guys episodes on YouTube, here’s a little trailer to give you an idea of what to expect. Please watch them anyway.
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.
Part 4 in a series of Internet Marketing videos featuring David Congreave and his assistant Beth Rudkin. This week Beth tries some flagrant self promotion.
To ask David and Beth an Internet Marketing question, send an email to video@davidcongreave.com
DAVID
Hi, I’m David Congreave and this is my assistant, Bethany Rudkin. This week we’re going to be talking about the fastest way to get a website up and running.
BETHANY
Yes and I know all about how to do this because I recently created my new website at *bleep*.com
DAVID
What did I tell you about self-promotion.
BETHANY
Don’t do it or you’ll beat me within an inch…
DAVID
Exactly.
BETHANY
Sorry. I just wanted to tell people about my website *bleep*.com
DAVID
Seriously, stop it. If you want to do something useful, why don’t you tell the viewers how you got your website up and running?
BETHANY
I used a service called Fantastico to install a WordPress blog. It uploads all the files, automatically so I didn’t need to do anything technical to get it working.
DAVID
Fantastico is a service provide by web hosts who use the cpanel interface. I can recommend Hostgator as a web host. They use cpanel and you can get a starter account for less than $5 per month.
BETHANY
You can also choose whether you want your blog to be installed in you root directory, or in a sub-domain folder. For example, my blog is hosted under the domain *bleep*.com, though I could have chosen to install it under *bleep*.com/blog
BETHANY
Sorry
DAVID
Once the blog is installed, you’ll want to spend some time playing around with the settings. But as an alternative, if you’re really pressed for time, you can have a Wordpress blog installed and setup for you at ninjablogsetup.com. If you purchase an account with one of their recommended web hosts, then they’ll do all the work for you, absolutely free. So no excuses – if you’ve yet to get your first website up and running, then this is arguably the fastest and easiest way to get started.
Bethany, anything to add?
BETHANY
Wouldn’t it help the viewers to see an example? Such as *bleep*.com?
DAVID
Right, that’s it, go back to work.
DAVID
Go!
DAVID
And that’s it. If you need more help with this, wordpress.org has a support forum and some detailed articles outlining the process we’ve just described.
So that’s all for today. Have a great day and I’ll see you again next week.
