One of the best ways to build customer empathy is through telling stories. Stories suck people in, keep people entertained and can help get your message across in a much more heartfelt way.

When people listen to a story, they immediately put their guards down. People aren’t looking out for a sales pitch. Instead, they relax and let you take the lead.

When you tell a great story, your audience will not only love the experience, but also understand your point and connect with your brand more.

So how do you tell a great story?

==> Focus on the Opening and Closing

The two most important parts of the story are the beginning and the end.

The beginning of the story needs to catch people’s attention so they pay attention to the whole thing. You need to set up the “what’s in it for me” right from the get go. Let your audience know that an essential lesson is buried in the story and that they need to listen closely.

The end is equally important. This is where you reveal the moral of the story and tie it back to your audience’s real life. The end of your story should feel like an eye-opening experience to your audience.

==> Trim the Fat

Beginning storytellers often try to tell the story as completely and accurately as possible. Unfortunately, that often results in rambling and overly long stories.

Trim out as much of the story as you can, without losing the core of the story and without losing any of the punch.

Don’t worry about getting all the details in. It’s okay if the story is just slightly different than what happened, as long as you’re abbreviating and not lying.

Keep it simple and to the point.

==> Make the Characters Come Alive

One of the biggest things to pay attention to in the story is the characters, especially the main character.

The audience should be able to relate to the main character. As you’re telling the story, they should be able to vicariously experience the emotional arc that the character is going through.

Every story should have a beginning, where the problem is set up. Throughout the story, some sort of tension arises. The character battles through the story and eventually comes out victorious or defeated.

Throughout the story, the audience should get to know the character more and more until they feel like they somehow know this person.

==> Use Stories from Everywhere

The best storytellers use stories for all over their lives. Always be on the lookout for ways you can turn experiences you’ve had in your life into stories to help hammer your message home.

Storytelling is one of the best ways to build empathy with your customers. Focus on the opening, trim the fat, emphasize the characters and look for stories from all over your life.

At this site we deal with a variety of business, finance, marketing, sales, small business and technology topics, for both the entrepreneur, and those who wish to get ahead in their career, or even start their own company. We offer practical, hands on advice about what works, and what doesn’t, to help you avoid wasting time and steering clear of the many pitfalls in online marketing today.

Take Stock of Your Finances: Cash Flow, Assets, Receivables, Expenses and More

How is your business doing? The only way to truly know is to get a crystal clear grasp of where your finances are. Public companies have to release statements every three months letting the public know how they’re doing. Likewise, you should periodically gather all the numbers in your business to see how you’re doing.

How often should you do this? Ideally, you’ll want to keep a running tally of your most important numbers and look at the less important numbers at least once every month or two.

When you’re taking stock of your finances, these are some of the most important numbers to look at.

==> Cash Flow

How much money is coming in and how much money is going out?

Cash flow is the lifeblood of any business. If you have high cash flow, you can hire employees, invest in marketing and grow your business. If you have low cash flow, you may need to cut back on expenditures for a time.

==> Assets

Assets, most importantly your cash in the bank, are another crucial element to running a business.

The more assets you have, the safer your business is. If you take a sudden hit, you can survive it if you have a safety pad.

If you have low assets, you might want to cut back on growth and save some money first instead.

==> Receivables

How much money are you expecting to receive from customers to whom you’ve delivered services but haven’t received payments yet?

These can help you project your cash flow and assets in the near future. It can also help you identify potential problems in your business.

If you have an inordinate amount of outstanding receivables or late deliverables, you might need to look into your follow-up and collection systems.

==> Examination of Expenses

Are you spending money wisely? Track your expenses and identify the aspects of your business that are costing the most right now.

Are these good investments? Are there expenses that you should cut down on? Examine your expenses regularly to see if you can cut costs.

==> Lead Areas of Growth

What areas of your business are growing the fastest?

Businesses that focus on their lead area of growth have the highest chance of success.

Yes, in business there are going to be fires that need to be put out and problems to be solved. However, you should always have one eye on your major opportunities, even as you’re firefighting.

==> Individual Sales Funnel Breakdown

Finally, break down your sales funnel and see which are your strongest and weakest points.

For example, let’s say your funnel goes like this: People come in from the web, then fill out a form. They then receive a free CD, then get a five-step direct mail piece and two phone calls from sales consultants.

Which steps are generating results and which ones aren’t? Perhaps the direct mail pieces are doing much better than the calls and you can just save the expense of hiring sales people. Or you could realize that it’s time to spend more money on web marketing.

These are some of the most important numbers to look at when you’re taking stock of your business.

In the early days of the Internet, the only ways a marketer could build a connection with customers was either through email or through their website. Then came Web 2.0.

With the advent of social media, the potential depth and breadth of your connections with your customers has become virtually limitless if you know how to leverage social media properly.

Social media presents an incredible opportunity for the shrewd marketer to deepen existing connections and attract new customers.

Build Relationships with People Who Will Not Give their Email Address

It takes a lot for someone to give you their email address, since it is a value piece of personal information. Even top marketers rarely are able to collect more than 20% of the email addresses of people who land on an email capture page. Your conversion rate is probably even lower. Your social media efforts can pay off, however, in the form of driving people to your email capture page to register, if the incentive is right.

It is easy for people to Like and Follow You, and keep up to date with you that way, so plan to cater to all these methods in order to stay in touch with the ideal customers in your niche.

In order to like you, people just need to see a piece of your content that they connect with anywhere on the web. It doesn’t take much and can be just a passing thought, but if you link your blog with your social media tools and tweet them or post them on your wall automatically, they will become much more visible.

If someone sees one tweet of yours that they like, they can decide to follow you. They might even be willing to re-tweet, and enough re-tweets will help you go viral online.

You can reach a lot of people who wouldn’t have otherwise got in your funnel through social media.

==> Social Media Is a Two-Way Street

Email marketing and (most) website marketing is a one way street. That means that you’re the one who’s providing the content, while your customers consume the content. You put out emails, they read the emails.

While this can be an effective way to market a product, it’s nowhere near as effective as having a real connection with your customers.

Social media allows you to have a two-way conversation. They can comment on your stories, tweet back, answer polls, like, post on your wall and express their opinions however they like.

This gets people much more invested in your brand and in your product. Someone who just reads your emails versus someone who’s in active discussion with you are two completely different kinds of customers. The latter will vehemently recommend your products, buy from you regularly and share your content, while the former may only purchase every once in a while.

Access to People’s Friends

Best of all, social media gives you access to other people’s social networks. With email marketing, you only get access to one person. With social media, if you make a post or a tweet that someone strongly agrees with, your content will immediately be shared with hundreds of other people. Among those people are more people who might re-share your content.

Social media is a powerful tool for building two-way connections and reaching the friends of your customers, for even more relationships you can develop online. If you don’t have a solid social media strategy yet, now’s the time to create one and reap the rewards.

FURTHER READING

Social Media Marketing in 15 Minutes a Day

How to Start Using Twitter as an Effective Marketing Tool for Your Business

How to Use Twitter for Viral Marketing

Digital time wasters are one of the biggest time drains in today’s workplace. Digital time wasters include social bookmarking sites like Reddit, 9Gag and StumbleUpon, as well as seemingly productive facilities like email and Twitter.

These sites can suck you in, consume hours of your time and spit you back out before you’ve even realized that you got distracted.

How do you handle digital time wasters? Just follow these five steps.

==> Step 1: Identify the Culprits

Which digital time wasters are your biggest time sinks? The answer varies from person to person.

Some people browse from joke to joke on 9gag, while others incessantly check email every hour. Some people spend far too much time on Facebook, while others are hooked on StumbleUpon.

Whatever it is for you, start by observing your own behaviors and identifying your biggest culprits.

==> Step 2: Set Specific Times to Check Them

The goal isn’t to eliminate the browsing of these sites. Instead, the goal is to limit the checking of these sites to a manageable amount that doesn’t distract from your day to day activities.

Set a few specific times to check these sites. For example, you might check Facebook once before work, once at noon and after work as much as you like. Or you might check Reddit only once a day, at night.

==> Step 3: Let the World Know

The decision to stop these time wasters becomes much more powerful when you let the world know.

Let your co-workers and your Facebook friends know that you’ll no longer be checking email (or whatever site you chose) every hour.

People will help hold you accountable and make sure that you don’t waste undue time on these sites.

==> Step 4: Block the Sites

This fourth step is optional. For people who have trouble with self-control and eliminating distractions of their own accord, one option is to simply block your computer from being able to access these sites.

This works best for purely entertainment sites like Reddit or StumbleUpon, rather than facilities that you also need for work like email.

How do you do it? Use your computer’s host file to redirect any domain that you don’t want to be able to access to “localhost” or “127.0.0.1″.

For more information on this technique, do a search for how to set a host file.

==> Step 5: Review and Improve

How has your productivity been since you implemented these changes? Take a look at your results after week one and see what happened.

Ask yourself: Is this sustainable? Can you keep your digital time wasters at this amount forever, or do you feel like you’re being overly strict? On the flip side, do you think you need to be even stricter to achieve maximum productivity?

Try your new system for a week or two, then change the system to suit your needs.

If your desk and your computer files are messy and disorganized, it’ll sap your energy, reduce your productivity and waste your time on trying to find things.

Furthermore, when your desk and your files are organized, it creates a sense of pride in your workspace. You’re more likely to look forward to working, rather than dreading it.

What’s the best way to organize your files?

==> Clear Filing System for Physical Papers

Do you have a clear filing system for the papers related to your business? Or are they just in random stacks of paper, where you hope to remember what they are?

It doesn’t matter what the exact system is, as long as it works for you. It can be chronological, alphabetical, by category or any other system you can think of.

==> Eliminate Your “Stuff” Drawers

People often have drawers that are just made of “stuff.” It’s where they throw things when they don’t know where else to put it.

Get a bunch of random business cards that you’ll never contact but can’t bring yourself to throw away? Toss it in “stuff.” Got an interesting advertisement that you’d like to emulate but don’t know where to put it? Toss it in “stuff.”

Pretty soon your “stuff” drawer is overflowing and you have no idea what’s in it. Important files can get lost in there, while unimportant files subtly zap your energy and sense of organization.

Eliminate your “stuff” drawers. Create folders for things like random business cards or future to-dos and file them. Even if there’s only one piece of paper in the folder, file it anyway.

Get rid of the “stuff” drawer. It’s the “under the bed” of your office.

==> Digital Organizing Essentials

Much like physical organizing, your first step with digital organizing is to create systematic folders so you know where everything is.

Think up a filing system that makes sense for you. Perhaps a different folder for every client or project. Perhaps a separate folder for deliverables versus things you’re using on a project.

Again, the actual system doesn’t matter, as long as it makes sense to you.

Create “quick links” to your most frequently used folders in the Windows file browser, on the left. Just drag and drop folders into these shortcuts for easy access.

Once again, do a deep cleaning of all the files and folders on your computer. Clean up your desktop so it’s not strewn with random files and folders. Delete files you don’t need any more and file anything that might be necessary for future reference.

Once you’ve organized your offline and online systems, schedule 30 minutes every two weeks to keep your organization system in check, and file any build-up of paperwork.

What percentage of your work time is spent on productive activities and what percentage of time is spent on interruptions, distractions, time at the water cooler and so on?

Most people drastically overestimate how productive they are. In fact, some studies show that as much as half of employee time is spent on non-productive activities.

How can you improve your productivity? By tracking your hours and examining your daily schedule.

==> Keep a Work Diary for One Week

For one week, keep a diary that tracks exactly when you’re doing what at work. Make sure to write down when you start actually doing work, as well as when you start doing something else, like checking Facebook or going to the restroom.

Your journal entries might look something like this:

12:15 – Started Work
12:31 – Bathroom
12:36 – Started Work
12:52 – Check Email

Anytime you do anything that isn’t strictly productive, write it down. Whenever someone interrupts you or asks you a question, write that down as well.

==> What’s Your Productive Time?

What percentage of your time is actually spent on productive activities? What percentage isn’t?

Once you have your one week journal finished, you’ll have an immense amount of data at your fingertips. You’ll be able to identify what your most common distractions are. That will go a long way towards helping you improve your efficiency.

==> Coming Up with Productivity Policies

Once you know what’s preventing you from being productive, the next step is to come up with policies that keep you on track.

Let’s say that one major reason you aren’t being productive is because of interruptions and distractions. Every 15 minutes or so, someone comes by your desk and breaks your concentration. That makes it hard for you to get anything done.

You might combat this by instituting a “no interruptions” policy. Put a note on your door that says “No Interruptions.” Ask people to text you if it’s an emergency.

Alternatively, if you find that you spend 10 minutes every hour checking email, you might decide to only check email twice a day: once at the beginning of the day and once at the end.

Identifying your biggest barriers to productivity is the first step to overcoming those barriers.

==> Schedule Blocks of Work Time

One of the most effective ways to increase productivity is to schedule in blocks of work time. This is time that’s spent purely on work and nothing else. No distractions, no Facebook – just work.

When you tracked your hours, you most likely realized how much time is spent on distracting activities. These work time blocks are just the opposite: solid work time with zero distractions.

If you follow these steps and improve your daily schedule, you can easily improve your productivity by 30%, 50% or in some cases even 100%!

Do you have a rock solid to-do system that captures everything you need to do? Or are you sometimes left with a vague sense that there might be something you’re supposed to do, without a clear sense of what that is?

Not having your to-dos sorted out in a clear system can be an incredible source of stress. You can’t ever know for sure whether or not you’re dropping the ball on something.

Conversely, having a great system for tracking all your tasks will relieve you of a lot of stress, make you much more efficient and make you more reliable professionally.

Here’s how to sort out your to-dos for maximum mental clarity.

==> Identify All Your To-Dos

Start by identifying each and every task you need to do, big or small.

This could be something as simple as buying new post-it notes to something as complex as asking for a raise.

For every single thing that you need to do professionally, write it down somewhere. Some people prefer digital task lists, while others prefer physical ones where tasks can be crossed off.

Spend a good hour scouring your email, your desk, your inbox tray, your pockets and your folders for tasks that need to be done. Write everything down in one place.

==> Creating a System to Track To-Dos

Once you have all your existing to-dos in one place, the next step is to come up with a system that’ll allow you to add to-dos to this list from anywhere.

What happens if you get an email while you’re on your home computer? What happens if you come up with an idea while at the grocery store? What happens if you get a to-do via phone call while you’re at the car wash?

You need a system that allows you to add to your to-do list from anywhere. Perhaps the easiest system is to write these to-dos down, then get in the habit of adding them to your master task list once or twice a day.

==> Doing Your Tasks

Sort your tasks using some sort of system that makes sense to you. Two of the most common systems are chronological and by project.

With a chronological system, you just sort your tasks by when they need to be done. You delete tasks as you finish them and keep an eye on the tasks that are coming up the queue.

A by-project task system organizes all the tasks by the projects they belong to. When you’re working on a specific project, you can just open up that project’s to-do list and do the next item.

Having a systematic way of sorting your to-dos will take away much of the stress of not knowing whether or not you have unfulfilled obligations. It’ll also make you more efficient in general.