Regional Business Toolkit | Local business
Regional Business Toolkit
Phone: +61 402 442 296
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25.01.2022 Im so excited to be working with Bangerang Cultural Centre and The Fairley Foundation to help bring the Bangerang Cultural Centre education toolkit to life. One of the things Im really excited about is helping deliver an online booking solution. This will help centralise bookings via an central calendar, and allow visitors to pre-book and pay online. But more importantly, I cant wait to help bring some of the Bangerang stories to life - digitally.... #fairleyfoundation #bangerangculturalcentre #regionalbusinesstoolkit
25.01.2022 Congrats to Louise, JL and the entire Shepparton Festival team for launching EOIs and the Call to Create for #SheppFest 2021. At a time when many events and event managers are still trying to wrap their heads around what the new normal looks like, its really exciting to see SheppFest launch submissions for their 25th festival. I know just how much work has gone on in the background, and I couldnt be more proud to help support Shepparton Festival. The EOI and Call to Creat...e platform has been overhauled this year and theres some really smart technology running in the background. Not only will it make submission process a breeze to use, for both the applicants and the SheppFest team alike, it also watches for incomplete/stagnant submissions and automatically follows up with applicants. This means the SheppFest team can spend less time chasing and more time creating. Looking foward to seeing watching SheppFest21 unfurl over coming months!
24.01.2022 I do love Chrome as a browser, and it looks like theres a raft of new features to make it even more powerful. Which browser do you use? https://thenextweb.com//google-just-made-chrome-better-wi/
23.01.2022 Last week a client sent me a giant frog. We’ve almost finished it. Can I just say that it was delicious!!! #chocolatefrog Haigh's Chocolates
23.01.2022 I dont often do ad hoc videos but an email came across my desk yesterday which bugged me all night. Please, please, please... find ways that you can make life easier for your customers, clients and colleagues. In this case it was a link to a video that took four steps to watch, when it could have taken one. You might be thinking that trimming just three steps out of a process isnt a big deal. But, to be honest, weve all got enough stuff going on right now that we dont n...eed irrelevant steps added to simple systems. Have a look at this video. Ill unpack just what this long, four step process was... and four easy tools that could have reduced that to just one click.
22.01.2022 Have some time to try some new tools? Or have you changed the way your staff team are working and are quickly trying to give them the tools they need? Here is the most extensive list of tools offering COVID-19 deals that I have seen. I mean its extensive in EPIC proportions. Take a look.... https://saasforcovid.com/ See more
22.01.2022 No is a pretty under-utilised word. I know that I dont use it enough. But we all know that saying no to the wrong things leaves us bandwidth to say yes to the right things. Heres a few ways that other people have politely said no. https://www.starterstory.com/how-to-say-no
19.01.2022 Just be kind to yourself and others. Its as easy as that. ;)
19.01.2022 Last year I had the pleasure of presenting several workshops as part of the Mitchell Shire Digital Marketing Series designed to help businesses improve their digital presence. In particular, my workshops were on: - Crafting your Google My Business profile - Creating a Review Funnel The recordings of these workshops are now publicly available, as well as others that do a deeper dive on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.... Have a squizz here if you're interesting in upskilling in any of these areas. https://vimeo.com/showcase/7415655
19.01.2022 The latest update to WordPress is now available (version 5.5). If youre running a WordPress website youll probably see this nagging message below next time you log into the backend of your website. Updating plugins and core files on your website is critically important. But as with any *major* update it pays to wait a little while until a subsequent patch is available (eg 5.5.1). Major updates have a habit of having unexpected conflicts or even breaking functionality on you...r site. Ill be waiting a week until a stable patch is available before I move any client sites to WP5.5. That said, WP5.5 brings some interesting functionality including: - XML sitemaps as core (you previously used 3rd party tools like Yoast SEO to generate the sitemaps that Google uses to understand what pages are available on your website) - Lazyloading of images to only download images on your web page when they are required, speeding up how quickly your website loads (you may have been using a caching tool to provide lazy loading) - updates to the block editor - auto-updates to theme and plugins (thatll be interesting) - and a bunch more. Of course, if that all sounds like gobbledegook thats ok. The take away is to wait for 5.5.1 before you update. And watch for the flurry of other plugin updates that will be rolled out to match. If youre looking for someone to manage the security and patch updates on your website, dont hesitate to reach out. I call them care plans for a reason (and updates are only a small part of my plans).
19.01.2022 Despite the focus of this article is about Wix current valuation, I think it speaks more about the huge shift of business around the globe to get online. Look at some of the stats over the 2nd quarter of this year: - 9.3M new users to Wix - net growth of 346k premium accounts... Whats that mean? 1) Hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of businesses and organisations around the globe have jumped online in the last quarter. And thats just Wix. The true number would be staggering when you included new sites made with Shopify, Squarespace, Weebly, Magento, Webflow, GoogleSites... and of course WordPress (which powers the lions share of websites around the world). If you have a project that you havent taken online yet then the best time to do so was yesterday... the next best time is today. 2) With so many new businesses online, the digital space is so much more competitive. And the term competitor just got broader. Dont fool yourself, you arent competing with the other business down the road. The more business jump online the more your prospective customers are connecting with products and talent world wide, and theyre also being distracted by 1001 other marketing messages. Its time to do a quick audit. Look at your competitors, chat to your audience, and find 3-5 bite sized things you can do to improve your website. You dont need to have the best website in the world, you just need to regularly be iterating and improving. 3) Websites are great, but most businesses fail to follow up. Marketing principles say you need to get in front of a prospective customer 7, 12, 20 times before youre memorable. Your website might be the first impression, but what about the other 19? If you already have a website then build on that by building conversations (and conversions). Add a chat widget to your website to continue the conversation. Drive people to your FB group. Or entice people to join your mailing list by giving them something super valuable. The tactic will be different for everyone but find a way to get your customers off your website and into a channel where you can connect with them regularly. If you can do this youll be in front of 90% of your competition. So the only question left is... where do you think you should start?
18.01.2022 Lots of the businesses I work with use a free Gmail account (like [email protected]) to setup their Google Analytics, Tag Manager, Search Console or other Google properties. And some also use Google Drive as an additional location to store backups of their website. Sometimes it's easy to set these up and forget about them. As a quick heads up, Google have amended their 'inactivity policy' and may choose to delete your content if an account hasn't been accessed in 2 years.... Things like using an automatic service to store a website backup in Google Drive appears to count as activity. But it's worthwhile reviewing the new changes via the link below, and scheduling to check in with any Google accounts every few months regardless. https://support.google.com/googleone/answer/10214036
17.01.2022 True or false: I have worked more on the online aspects of my business this week than ever before.True or false: I have worked more on the online aspects of my business this week than ever before.
17.01.2022 I just made a really cool dynamic sales report for a client. There's a few moving parts, but at it's core it simply shows how many website visitors there were in a month, and how much gross revenue that translated into. Plus it lands in their inbox on the 1st of each month. Now, under the hood there's a little bit more going on.... 1 The website is running Woocommerce. Probably the most common ecommerce solution out there. 2 We're using Integromat to copy sales data from the website into Google Sheets every 2hrs. 3 The Google Analytics is tracking all the visitors who come to the website. 4 We're using Google Data Studio to aggregate and show the data from both Google Sheets and Google Analytics in one report. This allows us to dynamically show both datasets at once, and filter by only the last month (or any date range tbh). Now what you don't see in that screenshot is the rest of the data - things like most popular products, highest converting days of the week, best acquisition channels, etc that are all pieces of critical intelligence that helps someone optimise their website and their sales activity. Sure, there are other ways of pulling this data together, but the above tools were already in place for a variety of reasons. So, my question to you... are you tracking how effective your website is working right now? If so, how are you doing it? I'd love to chat about it.
17.01.2022 Time-saving shortcuts - share your secrets. What is something you do that saves you a bunch of time in your business? Could be something like design templates, re-usable text snippets, shortcut keys, document templates or fancy Zapier stuff.
16.01.2022 The #ToolOfTheWeek is Whimsical. If youre a visual thinker like me then Whimsical might just be the tool missing from your toolkit right now. Im talking flowcharts, mind maps, sticky notes (and wireframes if you need them)... all ways to get your ideas down into some kind of diagram. Have a look at it over at https://whimsical.com/... I love being able to: Being able to put an entire process down on paper as a flowchart, so I can see how to make it simpler and more repeatable. (Hint, one of my core processes has 57 steps). Jot some ideas down really quickly, or even on the fly with a client, so that were all on the same page. Flesh out ideas as a mind map, not just at a surface level but 3, 4, 5, or more levels deep. Being able to share all these visual ideas with other, whether they are someone Im collaborating with, or as a resource for other people to follow How do you get your ideas down onto paper?
16.01.2022 Digitising some artwork. Although its a fun little task, it does remind me how important it is for all businesses and organisations to ensure they have high quality versions of artwork at hand. This includes logos, hero images, or other brand assets. Digitising artwork is more common than you think. So my question to you... do you have high quality logo files or other key assets that you can put your fingers on if someone asked?
15.01.2022 I love Loom and use it daily. In fact, out of the five video tools I use (they all have different perks) Loom is the one I use the most. But the best bit is that Loom has just released an iOS app too. So now I can not only do screenshares, but videos when Im out and about too. If youre an iOS user, check the Loom app here (or register for the upcoming Android app too).... https://www.loom.com/mobile See more
15.01.2022 3 ways you should think about using video if you and your staff are masked up at work.
14.01.2022 Hanging in Zoom right now for my Wednesday Morning Tea. Click the link below if you want to join me for a cuppa and chat. https://www.regionalbusinesstoolkit.com.au/morning-tea/
13.01.2022 Who here has a favourite Spotify playlist they are using while at work? Pop yours in the comments below.
13.01.2022 Happy International Dog Day! Our Charlie is definitely enjoying having us home during lockdown. If youve got a furry office companion, show us your photo below.
12.01.2022 Guess what? Last week Regional Business Toolkit and a client project was mentioned in Federal parliament. #totallyunexpected
11.01.2022 This is a quick test to play with some transparent overlays. Let me know if it looks ok.
11.01.2022 #SmallThings I am loving the fact that I can now upload videos direct to Loom. This is awesome! If you haven't checked out some of the overhauled features, then take 5 minutes this evening for a look.
10.01.2022 Have you ever embedded a Facebook or Instagram post into your website? Perhaps you had a great story to share, details of an event, or even the recording of a live video? Up until now, when you shared a link to a Facebook or Instagram post on your WordPress website, it was automatically converted into an embedded post for you. Point is... it was really easy. However, starting 24 October this simple way of adding FB and IG content to your website will stop working. Facebook is... changing their API and revoking 'unauthenticated support' for oEmbed. So if this impacts you, then you have a couple of options. 1. You can install a free social feed plugin on your website. This is a good option, but generally you might find it hard to style it to look like the rest of your website. 2. Or, if you are on a Website Care Plan with me, I can add a premium and customised social feed on to your website in a variety of ways, free of charge. In fact, a customised social feed is just one of the many pieces of complimentary software included as part of a Website Care Plan. If you want to know more about my Care Plans, send me a DM and we can chat about some options. But more importantly, get your FB an IG feeds fixed if you need to.
08.01.2022 Whats your Friday afternoon looking like? Do you take a moment to reflect on the week. Heres a comment that someone emailed me. It always makes me smile when someone says "I can do it myself now". What have your customers or clients told you this week?
08.01.2022 And it looks like the internet is back up again. Just had about 25 websites drop offline for about 29mins (10:22pm til 10:51pm). I wonder if its related to the Cloudflare outage earlier?
07.01.2022 My daughter went back to school today. But somehow I was left to manage her pets.
06.01.2022 This is a question I was asked the other day so I thought Id pop my response in a video below. From a digital integration perspective there are three things I suggested. 1) Use an online scheduling tool, like Calendly. That way you can spend more time prepping and working with your customers, and less time managing timing.... 2) Find ways that your best clients can get your experience in their own home (such as via group video). 3) Use social to continue investing in your local community through this period, regardless of whether youre open or not. Theres probably several takeaways here for you, even if youre not a hairdresser. If there is, let me know what they are in the comments below. And if you think videos like this are a great idea, pop a your industry below and Ill try and do one for you too!
05.01.2022 Question: Do you honestly have a good handle on the security of your website? Your website is a critical part of your whole digital ecosystem. Its probably more important than your social channels, or the other digital tools you use. But I often find businesses and organisations who arent actively maintaining the security of their website. What if I told you that the number of attempts made to hack into your website are are likely much higher than you imagine? Would you ret...hink the how you deal with website security? Or better yet, have a look at this video and Ill show you some stats I pulled from a website just last night.
05.01.2022 Some days I am totally amazed at what I can do in Notion! It is absolutely my second brain for all business information. Notion handles my: Client dashboards Operating procedures and templates... Checklists Meeting agendas and notes Project management information Swipe file of common email scripts and code snippets And heaps more.... Just sayin, its definitely one of my favourite digital tools.
04.01.2022 If you're anything like me, you've seen a bunch of reminders from people to update the year in the copyright disclaimer on your website (eg, change Copyright 2020 to 2021). But I want to challenge that. Don't just automatically update it. Instead be mindful of what that little disclaimer means (or doesn't mean). Here's three reasons why you shouldn't update the year on autopilot.... 1. There is no legal requirement in Australia to put a copyright disclaimer on a work, like your website. Copyright is automatically assigned the moment something is created. So don't spend time, effort or energy updating the year for something that's not required. You've got better things to do. 2. If you're going to use a copyright disclaimer, then make sure the year reflects when the copyright was first assigned. If you're website had a major overhaul in 2017 then that's the year that the copyright disclaimer should reference. *But I put new content up last week too?* I'll cover that below. 3. Most people aren't really sure what they're actually claiming copyright for. Is it the design of the website? The photos and videos? The content? Everything? Putting a generic copyright disclaimer in the footer of your website isn't always helpful or accurate. Although I can't tell you what you should do (I'm not a legal copyright professional), here's what I would do. 1. If you're going to use a copyright disclaimer in the footer of your website, change the year to a date range. If your website had a major overhaul in 2017, but you put new content up last week then say "Copyright 2017 - 2021". 2. Add some kind of Copyright Terms of Use to your website. You probably already have a Privacy Policy, a Website Terms of Use, a Refund Policy or other policies. Adding a Copyright Terms of Use will help you accurately describe what you're claiming copyright for, and what content you are happy for people to use (*hint, you might want people to share your ideas and information with other people, with due credit of course). 3. Periodically review the content your website and ensure it matches any copyright disclaimers. Take this a step further and use a tool like Copyscape to check if the content on your website matches content on other people's websites too. If you want to familiarise yourself with Australian Copyright principles, then the best place to start is here: https://www.copyright.org.au//Protecting_Your_Copyright.as And if you want to check whether content on your website matches anyone else's website, try Copyscape: https://www.copyscape.com/
04.01.2022 Please... just please... use a password manager and update your passwords. https://www.9news.com.au//22b1b831-a6bb-4fa4-a21a-0d9f5b59
04.01.2022 Happy Star Wars Day! Im wearing storm trooper socks while homeschooling. What about you?
03.01.2022 Everyone is talking about video conferencing, "Zoom", working from home (WFH), and lots of other buzz words. But are you sitting there feeling a little stuck because youve never actually used Zoom, or perhaps just never started a Zoom meeting? Dont let that stop you from doing business this week!... Drop me a comment below, or send me a message and Ill jump on a quick Zoom call with you and help show you were to find all the controls, etc. Itll take 10mins to feel more confident and in control of your Zoom calls. Does that sound like something that would help you?
03.01.2022 Over the last month we've been performing Website Speed Fixes on dozens of client websites. Sometimes the results are ok, and sometimes they're fantastic. In the case of the this particular fix visitors can now interact with the website in 0.5s, when previously they had to wait 4.1s. Page load speed is just one of many things that you could improve on your website. But page load speed plays a big role in ensuring that your website is easy to use - and that's a win for every...one. So how fast does your website load? Head to https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/ and test your website today.
03.01.2022 Aw shucks. Thanks for the kind words Amanda. Im always happy to share what I know - even (or especially) if its ideas, tips and tactics that you didnt know you needed to learn. I look forward to continuing to watch your business grow too!
01.01.2022 Its nice when little comments like this pop up in your inbox on a Friday. But more importantly its even nicer when Im able to deliver a simple solution that makes someones day lke that. #HappyFriday
01.01.2022 How long do you hold onto customer information for? And more importantly, if you hadnt seen someone in store for over 5 years do you think its worth reaching back out to them? Im keen to know how you deal with customers you havent seen for a while. Let me know in the comments below and lets have a chat. Why? Well, today I received a text message from an optometrist that I hadnt seen in over 13 years. Personally, I would have considered myself a pretty cold lead by now.... Perhaps youre the kind of person who automatically archives everyone who hasnt engaged with you for more than 6 months. Or maybe youve got a seasonal business and waiting two seasons (eg, two summers) feels about right. Or you might be someone who loves holding onto all the data... forever (you know who Im looking at ). Let me know in the comments below how long you wait before archiving people who havent engaged with you. Id really love to know.
