BD and marketing productivity tips
Stop wasting time on admin tasks
If you’re in business development it’s easy to spend lots of time writing emails to prospective clients.
And whilst you could use an automated email cadence software to take out the admin, it’s all too easy for such technology to quickly drag you into sending low-quality, high-volume spam - and that’s bad.
So how do we balance the desire to not have to write the same thing over and over again, with the need to write intelligent, well-targeted emails?
I’m glad you asked...
Productivity tool tip #1: On PC? Check out Textblaze...
If you find you spend ages rewriting the same email contents over and over again you should probably take a look at Text Blaze:
Text Blaze is a free Chrome Extension that allows you to insert snippets, templates and macros in Google Chrome quickly and easily.
So for example, it means rather than type "I help ambitious, busy agency + consultancy directors to get their business development, process + tools working for them." I can type "/help" and it types it for me.
You (may) need this in your life!
Productivity tool tip #2: On Android? No problem...
If you’re often writing the same messages, posts or emails on your Android phone, you can stop now; Gboard (Google's keyboard) allows you to save your favourite frequently used text bites for use as and when you need them...
And it's simple: Select all text, copy, click on clipboard icon - and then onto the pin icon.
(I made a video about this on LinkedIn recently - but nobody watched it...)
Productivity tool tip #3: Use Zapier to create draft emails that you can hand-tailor
So you're committed to focusing on quality rather than quantity in your cold outreach in 2021?
Good news - I'm impressed.
And the other good news is that you can use Zapier to build draft emails that you can then personalise - these drafts can be as complex as you need them to be and I have made versions of this with very many merge fields to ensure that the message is hyper-targeted - anyway, check this video…
If you need help with Zapier - please get in touch.
Get meetings booked more efficiently
Productivity tool tip #4: Book calendar appointments more simply
People spend an awful lot of time manually booking calendar appointments, sending emails back and forth to try to find a mutually convenient time - well, I certainly have (own up if you have too...!)
I had a whole dialogue on LinkedIn recently with people saying automated diaries are bad because they replace good communications - but they're not; it's all down to how they're used.
ANALOGY TIME: You don't decline vegetables or refuse a fine wine just because you've already got a steak on your plate - you can use technology and good human communication (and your brain) together. 😂
Check out the free offerings from people like Calendly or x.ai or search 'Free Appointment Scheduling Apps"
Productivity tool tip #5: Use Zapier to quickly add calendar appointments
Do you sometimes want to add a quick calendar appointment whilst in the middle of something else?
Well Zapier Push can help - it'll let you scribble something as simple as 'Call Jenny at 12pm' to stick a calendar appointment in your diary for 12pm to call Jenny - simple, right?!
Simply download the Zapier Push chrome extension, then build a Zap that creates an appointment from the Zapier extension - here's a video showing you how this works…
Retain knowledge of your customers
Productivity tool tip #6: Get a CRM!
I never cease to be amazed by how many 5-50 person agencies don't have a CRM or any other central repository of information about their past, present or future customers…
Instead all the information is in random emails and the head of each staff member - and if/when they walk, so does that knowledge...
Please don't leave yourself vulnerable; HubSpot, Capsule, Zoho CRM and others have free CRM offerings - and they're pretty easy to get going with!
And finally...
That’s all for now - I will either add to this blog - or produce a new one as time goes on, if you have questions or need help from me please drop me a WhatsApp message or book a call and we can go from there.