Work Shak Archives - Page 28 of 123

Making Your Website Work For You

Having your own website is absolutely crucial in most work from home ventures, especially if you’re an entrepreneur or a freelance worker. How you present yourself and your business online will be a huge factor for your potential customers, and will often make or break deals. Sloppy appearances, outdated information, misspellings, difficult to navigate links, and too little information are all signs of a bad website and will send savvy consumers running. Small Business Trends lists 7 ways to revitalize your site and keep it working for you, rather than against you:

Fix your copyright dates:This is important site maintenance that makes sure your butt is covered and is especially important for online retailers where an old date may work as a negative trust signal.

Revitalize your content:Take some time to go through your site and evaluate your content. Does it still work? Are there areas that are vague and could be clarified?

Remove holiday images: If it’s after January 1^st, take down any holiday images. Keeping up your Christmas/Hanukkah/whatever logos makes it looks like your site is still on vacation and that customers should go elsewhere for timely service.

Check your links: While you’re going through your site checking content, also look at the links on your site. Are they all going where they’re supposed to or are there broken links sending customers to cold 404 pages? If there are, take this time to fix them!

Update local listings if necessary: If you haven’t checked your listings in a while,GetListed.org is an invaluable service that will show you where you’re registered and what each site knows about you.

Look at site statistics: Are you running analytics on your site? If not, meet Google Analytics. It’s free and feature-rich. If you are, go through and figure out what were your most successful content pieces this year.

Redesign: Ask some fresh eyes to take a look at your site. Is it still professional looking and giving off the image you want?

Photo Credit: Rob Pearce

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Resume Tips

by Kathy T.

Your resume is the best way to market yourself to future employers. Remember, your resume is there to get you an interview, not the job. The interview is what leads to actual hiring. But with employers sometimes going through hundreds of resumes a day– how do you get yours to stand out? Or, at least, how do you keep it from being immediately tossed into the rejection pile?

Cashmoneylife.com has compiled an awesome list of 34 tips to create the ultimate resume. Here are some of my favorites:

The most effective method for making your resume stand out is by using a clean and easy to read format that clearly highlights your skills, talents, and abilities. So skip the funky fonts and colored paper.

Pay attention to basics. Spelling and grammar errors are a surefire way to never be hired.

Pay attention to resume length.It can be difficult to reduce years, or even decades, of experience to one or two pages. Do it anyway. Many hiring mangers only give 10-15 seconds to a resume on an initial pass. If you have three or four or five pages, chances are very high your resume will be placed in the reject pile.

Use Keywords ~ But Don’t Spam. Each job listing will have a list of keywords in the job description. It’s a great idea to use some of these exact phrases in your resume, as long as they represent your skills and abilities, of course.

These are some great tips, for those who are just starting the job hunt as well as for those who need to work their resumes over for the hundredth time. Be sure to read the whole list here.

Photo Credit: Daniel Lobo

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Office Storage Ideas

by Kathy T.

Having adequate storage is the key to keeping a well organized office area. But storage doesn’t have to be all boring plastic drawers and blue binders– it can be cute and express your own personal style as well!

The fabguide.com gives us 10 cute home office storage ideas, and they are all awesome, creative suggestions, including: pinboards, office trays, furniture with drawers, and cubed storage. My favorite are the white office shelves at number two!

Photo Credit: The Fab Guide

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Wordless Wednesday: Adorable Office Nook

by Kathy T.

Photo from Pinterest

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Clean Desk, Happy Mind

by Kathy T.

My desk at work is just a mess! I have papers stacked in a pile and dust on my computer’s hard drive. About three times a year, I get the urge to clean like a monkey on caffeine and so it’s about three times a year that I’m fully satisfied to walk in to the office. And you know what? It’s because a clean desk mean a happy mind!

Gretchen Rubin tells why on Linked In,

When I need to to calm myself, I take an hour and clean my office. I did this a few days ago. I’d been under some pressure, and I’d let it become a wreck, because I wasn’t taking the time to put anything away. I kept putting off little tasks, thinking, “It’s more important to answer my emails,” “I need to get this little piece written first,” “I need a break, I don’t want to deal with this now,” but finally, I got down to it.

I set aside an hour and tackled the mess. Methodically I entered reading notes, copied information, filed, wrote emails, tossed papers, took coffee cups to the kitchen, etc. One of my daily habits is to take notes on a scratch pad – mostly to-do reminders – and these pile up quickly. I worked my way through the items on those sheets so I could toss them out.

The next day, she enjoyed a peaceful, easy feeling! I think I know what’s on my schedule tomorrow!

Photo from tripadvisor.com.

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Using QR Codes

by Kathy T.

I want to use QR codes in my position as Public Relations Director for a municipality. But I’ve really racked my brains on how to do it. Perhaps we could put baseball schedules up, or practice times. Maybe a QR code that has the schedule of our annual festival. If you’re struggling to figure out how to use a QR codes, perhaps makeuseof.com can help,

Selling something locally? Too big for snail mail? For weighty electrical items, cars, hardware and so on QR codes could be used to help sell your item. If you are using an online merchant for the sale (such as eBay or AutoTrader) the QR code could be used to link directly to the item’s point of sale. If you’re simply selling offline and advertising locally a QR code can be used to provide a web link to the manufacturer’s description, which will provide a lot more information than you can fit on a classified advertising card. Simply print out your code and glue it on!

There are other good ideas for using QR codes, but I still like my idea better… posting a schedule of events!

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3D Printers to be Sold by Staples

by Kathy T. Leave a Comment

Imagine working on a presentation where you show what your latest architectural design could look like in 3D. Or you want to produce a unique, eye-catching business card for the big exhibit show! For $1300, this could be an easily accessible reality for small- and home-business owners with a new 3D printer coming soon to a Staples near you. From CNN Money,

While 3-D printers have long been used in industrial manufacturing, a recent “maker” movement is slowly popularizing in-home versions of the devices.

The Cube, like other 3-D printers, is a machine that creates physical, three-dimensional objects. The printer uses a digital design file as a blueprint, then builds the item layer by layer with plastic. Users can print anything they can design, including action figures, iPhone docks and coffee cup holders.

Is it just me or does this almost sound like replicator technology you’d see on Star Trek?

Photo from kickstarter.com.

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Moonlighting the Right Way

by Kathy T. Leave a Comment

In my day job, I am required to notify my employer of other work because I work for the government and we must do everything ethically, morally, and legally. (I would do that anyway, by the way!) I know police officers who work as security guards on the side, fire fighters who work in other emergency services, and clerks who sell “31” and Avon part time. We all disclose our work.

However, if you have another job and want to also provide extra income to your family via a part time job, you can do what’s called “Ethical Moonlighting.” I had never heard of the term until Miranda Marquit explained it on Planting Money Seeds,

It’s also important to follow rules of common decency. Skillings points out that you shouldn’t poach clients from your current employer, and you shouldn’t use company resources to get your own side business off the ground. However, that doesn’t mean that your employer can’t help you with your home business. “Your hobby business is most likely not a direct competitor for your employer,” she says. “I know several entrepreneurs who benefited greatly from employer support when first starting out.”

If you do find a part-time job or start your own home business, be careful to not violate your company’s non-compete rules.

Photo from National Rural Knowledge Exchange.

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Discipline and a To-Do List to Stick To

by Kathy T. Leave a Comment

To be self employed or to work from home, you must have a strong sense of discipline. And it will also help if you structure your day both so you can accomplish your projects AND advance your professional skills. How do you do it? According to J.T. O’Donnell there are 10 things you should do every day at work,

1. Read something related to my industry.
2. Read something related to business development.
3. Send two emails to touch base with old colleagues.
4. Empty my private client inbox by responding to all career coaching questions within one business day.
5. Check in with each team member on their progress.
6. Have a short non-work related conversation with every employee.
7. Review my top three goals for my company that are focused on its growth.
8. Identify and execute one task to support each of my top three goals.
9. Post five valuable pieces of content on all my major social media accounts.
10. Take a full minute to appreciate what I have and how far I’ve come.

I really like item #1 – reading something every day related to your industry. This is a great way to stay on the cutting edge of your career! What do you do during your work day?

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Resumes that Pop

by Kathy T. Leave a Comment

If you’re applying for a contract or a job, your resume needs to stand out from the competition. Be truthful, of course, but a professionally designed, sharp resume can go far to get the attention of your vendors or future boss! From Fab.com,

Since the advent of the word processor, résumés haven’t changed much. How to stand out from the sea of drab, black-and-white Xeroxed Word docs? Loft Résumés helps you get an edge on the competition by creating a grabby, beautifully designed and supremely colorful résumé that’s personalized to your own individual needs and wants.

Check this gorgeous resume out:

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