Instead of ending up with a pile of work waiting for you when you get back, check out these productivity tips from my own travels and some my favorite road warriors on how to keep everything from your workouts to your inbox in check.

Inbox Zero

The way I personally keep my sanity every day is by returning to my hotel room at the end of each night and striving for a zero inbox. We use Gmail at our company, so I use the “Unread Emails First” filter to bring everything I haven’t checked yet to the top of my inbox.

I use the Rapportive Gmail plugin, which gives me a quick snapshot of the person who sent me the email (including their recent Tweets or Facebook posts, if they’ve made them public.) Knowing who sent the email and how urgent it is to respond right away is the first step to email sanity.

The goal of “Inbox Zero” hotel time is to read every email, even if I don’t have time to act on it until I get back. I file them into trip-specific folders that say, “Needs Attention,” or “Longer Term.” Anything that truly requires an immediate response gets an email back that same night.

The reason this is an important tactic for a traveler is because you can never know when you’ll be distracted from answering your emails – a delayed flight, or stressful meeting can easily help me forget to respond to something, so I need to characterize it so I can remember everything.

Track Expenses as You Get Them

Nothing sucks more than getting home to a super-long expense report. Scott Orn, a venture capitalist at Lighthouse Capital Partners, tracks expenses as he goes by taking a photo of every receipt as he gets them, and sends them to his cloud storage account, immediately:

“It’s really simple to take a photo of the receipts I accumulate on a business trip and file them directly into my expenses folder for the month. I can share the folder with anyone who needs access to it, like our finance and administration teams. It saves a lot of time at the end of the month when I scrambling to get expenses filed and I never have to worry about expenses falling through the cracks and not getting reimbursed.”

Whatever software you use, tracking receipts by taking a photo of them as you go is a good alternative to accumulating them for a month and then scrambling to complete your expense report using an old-school scanner. Plus you can easily avoid losing receipts by creating a paperless paper trail.

Expense Magic will even file receipts into whatever expense report format your company uses.

Actually Use Those Sneakers You Brought

It’s easy to give in to the temptation of going to dinner or drinks with coworkers or clients every single day when you’re on a business trip, but the “I’m on vacation. . .I’m away from home,” excuse doesn’t fly when it comes to skipping workouts.

I’ve packed sneakers with the best of intentions and just not used them. But I try to make every effort to go for a jog or visit the fitness center in the morning, knowing that dinner or cocktail obligations will always seem much more fun to me than the gym.

Another option is to pack a yoga mat and do a workout right in your room. I love this “Nerd Fitness” 20-minute hotel room workout if you’re stretched for time.

Use WiFi-Less Planes to Your Advantage

Most people freak out when they find out their plane has no wi-fi. On the contrary, an internet-less plane can be the most productive, zen time to work on documents like presentations or proposals that aren’t entirely reliant on connectivity.

Think of the time in the air as dedicated focus time where you can’t get distracted by the latest LOLCat (guilty as charged) or IM from a coworker.

Save yourself from a conversation with your row-mate by plugging in some headphones and just cranking on whatever project has been eating at you when you’re usually distracted by phone calls, meetings or being online.

Business Woman Photo via Shutterstock

The post Take a Business Trip Without Missing a Beat on Productivity appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Even better: it was free.

Years later, most of us take Gmail for granted. Many companies even use Gmail, Google documents and Google spreadsheets to do business. Google set the expectation for unlimited free storage, but a lot has changed since those early days.

When it comes to free storage and unlimited megabytes, everyone signs up – private and business users, alike. This has caused some people to question the business model of the cloud – is there enough money to be made by cloud storage providers to trust them with my documents?

The answer is undoubtedly yes, but the way to do it isn’t by charging for infinitely more storage space, it’s by offering users a better storage experience. In particular, small businesses are looking for quality, convenient cloud services that improve their productivity, not just a dumping place for files.

The cloud becomes more valuable for small businesses when offering services beyond the current state of commoditized storage. As we saw with business software years ago, and recently with valuable apps for business, the benefits of paid services often outweigh the benefit of getting them for free.

Businesses understand software as a service, and they will soon expect services on top of cloud storage. There’s a lot to learn about service and value from the airline industry. Virgin America threw out the conventional approach for low-cost domestic flights and offered a superior product at competitive prices.

For many smaller carriers, the focus is on the cheapest, most no-frills experience possible in order to compete with the bigger players. But Virgin has proven that customers are looking for more and will pay for added services.

Similarly, it’s the cloud service experience that will add true value for consumers and prove to be the winning ingredient.

The unspoken truth in the cloud storage market is that most small businesses don’t come close to using all of the data offered, even in limited plans. In reality, a business owner’s typical digital data – office files, PDFs and other records, maybe a few photos and scans – doesn’t take up more than 10 GBs.

So, as the cloud service industry matures, it will need to look for a business model beyond the “how many GBs do you get for a buck” approach. In cloud services, small business owners should be looking at what they are actually trying to accomplish and see how these services fit into their workflow.

Spotify is a great example of a good introductory product with the option to pay for an enhanced experience. They have figured out how to create a valuable pay wall that goes beyond online access to a vast selection of music. They also offer paid options for better quality sound, downloadable content and no commercials, along with a potent mobile app experience.

When it comes to cloud storage, just like with Virgin and Spotify, people and businesses are looking for value-added services and an effortless experience. We all want ways to make our lives easier, not more complicated. Users want a solution that is flexible and that easily integrates with the systems and services they are already using. Cloud storage solutions are beginning to realize that features beyond extra GBs are what users will pay for.

Features like cloud search, easing workflow and collaboration options are the services many businesses will latch onto. Some questions to ask yourself are:

• Does your cloud storage provider drastically change your everyday workflow?
• Does this cloud storage provider provide you with collaboration tools for your team?
• Does your cloud storage provider have desktop, mobile and tablet accessibility?
• Is the main draw of a particular cloud storage provider the amount of space it gives you?
• Does your cloud storage provider have a simple explanation for how your files will be secure in the cloud?

When identifying how your business will approach the cloud, take the above into consideration.

Under the Cloud Photo via Shutterstock

The post Business Value: Scratching Beneath the Surface of the Cloud appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Do yourself a favor – don’t leave it all up to the lawyers. Partnerships are about a shared vision, so make sure business comes first and foremost.

1. Business First

The key to any good business relationship is understanding individual and shared goals. We all want to make money, but when you share the cost of the service provided to customers, there are expectations and split revenues. Leverage what your company can do for their business goals and vice versa.

Before any lawyers get involved make sure you talk about business goals openly. How will revenue be shared? What does the end product look like? Does one company have to significantly customize a service they already provide? Is distribution involved? If the partnership falls through, will one company be compensated for the work its already delivered?

Answering these questions on a business level first will help get the partnership off the ground before legal teams can weigh down the agreement. Don’t get me wrong, lawyers are great, but they focus on the details, which can rabbit hole partnerships quickly. Getting the business goals in writing can help make sure you enter the legal phase of creating a contract with a solid, mutually understood business case.

Since getting a large company to agree to anything in “writing” can be hard, having a summary written in an email is often a good solution – and something that you can get them to agree to prior to getting the lawyers involved.

2. Define Responsibilities

Within any partnership, there are distribution commitments. This might mean physically delivering a product, or it could be distributing a message. Whether on the content or distribution end of a partnership, be very clear about the work that is expected upon delivery and your company’s role in getting it there. Define roles precisely so they have no messy gray area. Make sure the exact product is explained and the infrastructure to support and update that product is part of this definition.

It’s important to be thorough at this stage, so be sure to cover breach of contract and termination agreements. Basically, if doom and gloom takes over, you want to ensure you have leverage and wiggle room. Make sure your company has enough pull written into the contract to enforce a breach of contract, should it happen. Also, define clean terms (and even metrics) that give your company the opportunity leave the partnership without a devastating penalty if it doesn’t work out.

3. Hire Experienced Council

When the drafts of the contracts are going to be exchanged you’ll need an experienced lawyer. Don’t make the mistake of trying to draft a complicated, legally binding agreement between a big company and yours without counsel. Big companies have a sophisticated in-house contracting attorney; you need one too.

I’ve spoken with entrepreneurs who thought they were saving money by not using an attorney on their first partnership contracts, only to later realize they gave away a lot of their intellectual property to the big company!

When considering who to hire, let experience be your guide. Essentially, this means that the larger, the more complex an agreement is, the more experience you will need from your counsel. I’ve had great luck using a quick online search to find startups who have partnerships with the company I’m negotiating with – and then using LinkedIn to ping the startups’ CEOs and ask for recommendations on the counsel they used.

One area where you’ll need your counsel’s advice is negotiating the “protective provisions.” These are designed to protect the larger partner, in the case that the smaller gets sold. Make sure the large partner does not have a chance to either block or disrupt the sale of your company – as unlikely of a move as this might be. Also, make sure these provisions cannot slow or block funding, particularly if your company is venture backed.

Many times the larger company will ask for more than it should. Your lawyer’s job and reputation is based on negotiating for you, knocking the larger partner back in line with an agreement that is more standard.

Your lawyer will also help you out with intellectual property. Sometimes in partnerships, something called IP taint happens – where one partner lays claim to own the IP of the other. Make sure that your company retains full ownership of any IP, even if a customization is involved in the process. Make sure these bases are covered before your partnership officially launches.

Once the hardball is out of the way, it’s time to be a good partner – which brings me back to Ben Hogan’s golf swing. To become known as the best striker in the game, Hogan had his tips, tricks and secrets, but he also had his very obvious follow-through, which basically comes down to routine and effort.

To be a great partner, meet your responsibilities consistently and don’t be afraid to append your agreement if it requires some tweaking.

Negotiation Photo via Shutterstock

The post The Terms of Business: How to Negotiate a Partnership Agreement appeared first on Small Business Trends.

The numbers don’t lie: tablets are primed to transform computing for small businesses this year, and it isn’t all about the iPad (which sold 11.2 million units in Q4).

Until recently, it was easy to excuse those who thought that tablets are to laptops as laptops are to desktops.  As Sarah Lacy points out on PandoDaily, it’s not that simple.  It’s different than the “SAAS mania of the early 2000s” that ran into IT barriers.  Tablets change the way we interact with software.  Because tablets utilize touch-based apps, Lacy predicts that workers are more included to adopt business software, partially “because it’s the new shiny toy they want more reasons to use.”  Apps follow the mantra “there’s an app for that,” which works perfectly for small business, because, no matter your workflow, there is an app to help.

Tablets are designed simple and functional, important distinctions for small businesses.  Rather than booting up a computer or laptop (or keeping one running for the entire day) that is also running a host of other programs in the background, tablet apps give you what you want when you want it.  If you want to balance your checkbook, create an invoice or scan and send documents to the cloud, jumping into an app is much easier than booting up a program on a traditional computer.  It’s also important to point out that beyond the obvious tablet choice of the iPad - the Amazon Kindle and now the Samsung Galaxy – have put competitive, appealing alternatives on the market.

The main advantage of a tablet is speed, which is enhanced because of mobility.  Why wait to input an invoice into a computer or share a business contract when you are back in the office?  Many SMBs don’t sit at a desk all day; they are on the floor, servicing customers or out on the road.  The mobile nature of tablets and apps let you take action right away, and many times from the field without lugging around a laptop. Plus, the tablet is replacing a lot of traditional equipment small businesses need at a lower cost, like a cash register, fax or scanner.

I’m certainly not the first to predict that tablets have a home inside businesses, but it is important to make the distinction that they have a home within small business.  I think that by the end of 2012, small businesses will understand and adopt tablets in their daily workflow.  This will push app developers like myself to create better software to make your lives easier… and I’m sure there will be a new version of Angry Birds out soon, too.

Tablet Photo via Shutterstock

The post Your Small Business Needs a Tablet appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Here’s an example. Earlier this year, we launched our Android app and got lots of negative reviews because our pricing strategy didn’t work for the mobile app world. What did we do? We quickly changed our pricing, updated our app and (drumroll, please. . .) turned a lot of those unhappy users into engaged customers.

Customers were pleased that we listened to them and improved our offering based on their feedback. They gave us a second chance, and they appreciated the effort we put into improving the product. That’s the value of launching first and correcting course later. So what’s with all the hating on launchers? Lean startup guru Eric Ries probably best explains the “Don’t Launch” philosophy. The biggest risks are that you’ll somehow mess up your positioning, product or messaging.

I just don’t agree. If you fail the first time, pick yourself up and launch again. You can do it. I mean, if politicians can change their positioning on taxes or immigration at will, then why can’t your startup modify its value proposition?

It seems that everyone is viewing this argument in extremes. They either picture the overhyped startup (a la Color) that is unable to live up to the media’s inflated expectations, or the stealth startup doing their thing sans users because no one knows they exist. But there’s a massive middle ground people are missing between these poles.

If you have funding and you’re cranking on an awesome product (crushing some code, brogramming as this BostInno post describes, or whatever you do), why not just let people know about it?

It’s foolish to think that your launch “coming out party” is your one opportunity for press, your one shot at greatness. People make the assumption that the spark from a launch has to be doused with a firehose if a startup decides to adjust its strategy. Nothing could be further from the truth. We launched several years ago as a mail-in scanning service. This year, we introduced apps that let people scan to the cloud themselves.

Each of these apps has presented a new opportunity to launch all over again, reaching new audiences and putting our product in the hands of more people.

In terms of “life after the launch” — there’s plenty. Think of each launch or relaunch as an opportunity to prove to your customers that you are listening to them. For example, our initial iPad app wasn’t that great even though the launch was solid. So what did I say, as CEO, when we recently relaunched the updated iPad app? That our customers “demanded an app from us that let them scan.” Our new iPad 2 is now OfficeDrop’s #1 daily source of new customers.

Of course, you should have a series of activities taking place after your launch to prove that you didn’t just have a single, big-bang event and then fall into the ether. These can include product updates, opinion pieces, and social media campaigns that engage your users and show a little personality. Evernote is a great example of a company that announces frequent updates and gets great mileage out of them. If you can do this regularly, reporters will pay attention and cover you regardless of whether you’re constantly pushing your story on them.

Even brilliant marketers like Sean Ellis (who has an amazing blog on startup marketing) sometimes realize there are exceptions to “launching your startup with a trickle.” He recently launched his new startup CatchFree at TechCrunch Disrupt, perhaps the biggest “launch” opportunity possible. He’s been through this before, and he analyzed the risk/reward and identified the appropriate time to be bold.

The bottom line is: You’re an entrepreneur. So get excited! And don’t be afraid to talk about what you’re doing, regardless of the fact that it may change. Keeping it under wraps doesn’t help anyone, and the excitement you feel about your startup will be infectious. If you develop great stuff and are pumped about it, others will pick up on your energy. So get out there and launch!

Launch Photo via Shutterstock

The post Don’t Be a Launch Hater appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Thankfully, technology makes moving things forward when you are out of the office easier than ever. Here are some of the tools I use to help my team stay productive when I’m working at home.

Yammer – Yammer is like a private Twitter for your office. It’s a great way to post updates and let the team know my status – i.e., when I have to step away from the phones, if I need someone to look into something, or when I’m ready to talk about something. Yammer can work on your desktop and politely lets you know what’s going on without interrupting your work. There is a free version of this service, although my company pays $5 per user.

Skype – Skype is a great way to actively interrupt/ping someone with a question when we are not in the same office. I can see when they are online and ask a question quickly. We also use it to transfer small files directly with each other. The beauty of Skype is also the downside – like a phone call, it interrupts you. Thankfully, you can adjust your status to “away” or “busy” to keep coworkers from getting in the way when you’ve got important things going on (like changing a diaper). Best of all, basic Skype is free.

FaceTime –Apple’s video chat service is free, and it’s been really helpful for me to have face-to-face conversations with my team. It works only on the iPad, Mac and iPhone, so each party needs one of these pretty pricey devices to take advantage of it. However, I find FaceTime is just as easy as making a phone call and more reliable than other video chat programs. When I need to have an important conversation with someone and want to see their reactions and facial expressions is when I find myself using it the most.

Google Docs – I’ve been sharing basic spreadsheets with coworkers over Google Docs for quite some time, so this fits nicely into my work-from-home situation. I find Google Docs especially useful for collaborating around potential contracts or proposals that we are sending to our clients. Quick note: We still use Word for final formatting. Google Apps business plans start at $50 per year per user.

GoToMeeting – For larger internal meetings we use GoToMeeting. This allows us to have phone dial-in, Web voice meetings and screen sharing all at once. We used to use Skype for these purposes, but it became too unreliable for group calls, so we switched. GoToMeeting isn’t cheap at $49 per month, especially when competitors offer similar services for free.  However, I feel it’s better to pay for a meeting service rather than having my employees wait around for a virtual meeting that is delayed because of technical issues.  That’s a loss of money! I see GoToMeeting as a must-have as I try to keep the company moving forward from my house.

Phone and email – Two bonus tools that we all use! While working at home, I’ve made a serious effort to be available by phone and email at specific times during the day (of course, my newborn didn’t exactly get this memo). I bundle both email and phone times, since it’s easy to pause what you’re doing with email to answer a call. I also delegate email – forwarding an item to a team member and asking them to take care of it while cc’ing the original sender.

Have you managed and grown your business from home? What tools and tactics did you use? I’d love to hear what worked for you. Do you have any ideas that would help me become more efficient as a businessperson while I do my duty as a new dad?

The post 5 Tech Tools to Help You Manage Your Small Business From Home appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Regardless, if you find yourself spending a lot of your workday in Gmail, check out these apps that will make your Gmail experience even richer:

Rapportive: Rapportive kills the annoyance of sorting through windows to look up your contacts on social media while you are in Gmail. The browser plug-in saves you the hassle of having to remember who the person who emailed you is and instead looks them up on LinkedIn and Twitter – within your Gmail tab. I use it to quickly place the names and faces of the people who email me, since I’m often out meeting new potential partners for my business and get a lot of emails from our customers. Having the person’s context right there can really speed up responding to an email. You can even follow, reply to and retweet people on Twitter all within your Gmail. Rapportive is a free service.

ScanDrop for Mac: (Full disclosure, this is our app.) We built this Mac scanner software to make it easier to scan and share paper via email. It connects many, many desktop scanners directly with Gmail (and other cloud storage options) and makes sharing easy by giving you the ability scan, preview and attach the PDF, look up a contact’s email address, and send an email all without having to open a browser. While we were building ScanDrop we heard from small business customers that they were using Gmail to store and sort documents, since it has seven times the storage capacity as Google Docs. So we added a scan and email-to-yourself option that lets you add Gmail labels for easier storage of PDFs within your own Gmail account. Currently ScanDrop costs $9.99 in the Mac App Store, although we are working on a free version.

Courteous.ly: Courteous.ly lets your contacts see how much email you are sorting through at the moment so they can be courteous about interrupting you with additional emails. Basically, the free service displays either how many unread emails you have or how many emails you have in your Gmail inbox so your contacts can get an idea of how busy you are. Courteous.ly will help your contacts manage expectations about when they might hear back from you, and it also helps them choose the best time to reach you. This is a free service.

HotSpot Shield: If you use Gmail from outside the U.S. then you may need a service like HotSpot Shield. This software lets you log into Gmail from countries that block it with a firewall, such as China. Hotspot Shield does this by creating a virtual private network (VPN) between your laptop or iPhone and HotSpot Shield’s Internet gateway.  This prevents snoopers, hackers and ISPs from viewing your Web browsing activities, instant messages, downloads, credit card information or anything else you send over the network – even on public Wi-Fi. So, if you are doing a lot of work for your business on random Wi-Fi networks, you may want free software like this on your computer.

Active Inbox: Active Inbox is for business owners who manage projects or their business from within email – and who are finding their inboxes are out of control. The plug-in allows you to organize emails by project and flag an email chain by status, such as “Waiting on a Reply.”  You can also tag emails for immediate action or mark them so that you remember to deal with them later. Active Inbox also recalls your previous emails with a contact inside your Gmail window for quick reference — no need to open a new browser tab. There is both a free and premium version of Active Inbox.

Is Gmail an important part of your business workflow? Is there anything you’ve tried I haven’t mentioned here? Feel free to comment or tell me on Twitter.

The post Top Gmail Apps and Plug-ins for Running a Business appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Here are five steps my management team is taking to save us money in 2011:

1. Set the tone.

Your team will take their cues from you, so meet early with them and remind them of the importance of being frugal this year. Getting everyone focused on intelligent thriftiness at the beginning of the year can pay dividends as the year progresses. Remind the team of simple actions they can take to save money, like asking for discounts when purchasing goods and services for the business.

There is nothing wrong with asking; and if you don’t ask you can’t save!

Let them know they should turn off their computers when they leave the office at night to save money on electricity. Then solicit ideas on areas where the company can economize. It’s all about setting the tone and getting your employees bought in.

2. Check subscriptions and recurring charges.

The beginning of a new year is a great time to review your monthly expenses. Small, recurring charges can add up over the course of 12 months. Make sure you are still using all of the subscriptions that you see billed on your corporate card – everything from magazines to cloud services to trade group memberships. If you are not using the product, cancel! And if you are planning on using the service for the entire year try to get an annual plan. Companies often offer discounted annual memberships.

I realized that I had signed up for a couple of services on a monthly basis so I could “test” them – and I had forgotten to buy the annual plan when I started using them regularly! Pull out a couple of your last few credit card statements and looks for savings.

3. Plan for taxes.

It’s never too early to talk with your accountant about tax strategies for the new year. I know you’ll be spending way too much time with your accountant come April, but why not make April 2012 a little better by making sure you are taking all the right steps from the first month of January?

4. Create an expenditure plan.

As a competent business owner, you probably already know a large percentage of the big expenditures you’ll need to make in the coming year. And you likely also have a decent idea of when you’ll need to make these purchases. Put all this down in a spreadsheet, and estimate the dollar amount and the purchase date. Getting all the items on paper will help you visualize your big cash outflows for the year, and will help you prepare to make more intelligent purchasing decisions.

I find that if I know I’m going to need to make an important expenditure in June, I start looking for deals in March – and can often find discounts, sales or items on eBay. Also, if you know what you are going to need, you will be more thoughtful in how you react to coupons and special offers you get from your vendors.

Finally, remember that the account managers who serve you are likely working on quarterly commissions. If you can pull forward your purchase by a few weeks to the end of a quarter, you may be in a much better negotiation position. But you can’t do any of this unless you plan ahead!

5. Check out Anita’s e-book on small business money saving tips!

She lists 75 ways your business can save money and prepare for growth. You’ll find great ideas from saving money on stamps by using your bank’s check payment feature to taking advantage of your kids’ latent tech skills.

What steps are you taking this January to run a more economical business this year? Please share your thoughts below – let’s help each other have a great 2011!

The post 5 Steps to Help Your Small Business Save Money in 2011 appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Here are 5 tips for working with outside designers:

1) Provide context.

Help your designer understand what your business does. Explain the goal that you are trying to accomplish with the design work. Realize that the designer does not have the same view into your business that you do. By providing context around what it is that you do and what you are trying to accomplish, you not only help the designer create better work but also help focus his or her creativity on the problem at hand.

2) Use a style guide.

It is smart to have a style guide created so that all of your collateral materials will be consistent and professional looking. A style guide is a set of standards for design of your company’s materials/documents/manuals. For a small business, a simple style guide should have the preferred primary typeface/headline/header font and secondary typeface/body text font, primary and secondary colors and general rules for on-page spacing. The goal of the style guide is that if someone sees your company’s mailing and then visits your website, they should naturally understand that they’ve come to the same company’s home page.

3) Use examples.

Provide examples of both designs you like and designs you do not. A good set of examples is a great starting point for your designer. You should not only have examples, but have specific reasons why you like or dislike them. Opinions/reasons will help the designer focus on using the elements that you like best and keep him or her from wasting time recreating elements you didn’t consider important.

4) Sketch and scan.

Another great way to share your ideas with the designer is to sketch the design on a piece of paper and scan it to share it with the designer. The goal is not to pretend to be Michelangelo, but instead to get your basic layout ideas across. Do not spend a lot of time with this, but instead just scratch out something as a jumping-off point from which the designer can begin to create something appropriate for your needs.

5) Keep in touch.

Have a regular schedule for when you and the designer will check in with each other. You’ll want to update the designer on any changes that might impact the design and promptly provide feedback to them as needed. Prompt and decisive feedback is crucial to a good relationship with a designer.

Bonus tip: Give constructive criticism.

Do not be afraid to provide criticism. The designer cannot read your mind, so you need to be honest when you do not like something. You should not feel bad delivering negative news if you can do so promptly and in a positive manner! Be polite as you state the negatives, but make sure you do state them – otherwise it will be close to impossible to get the design you want for your business.

Have you used outside designers? What have you learned from working with them? Any tips to share with the Small Business Trends audience?

The post 5 Tips for Working With Outsourced Designers appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Videos grab attention, engage viewers and, if executed properly, can succinctly communicate your entire value proposition in as little as two minutes.

The power of video continues to impress me. Some of my company’s videos have been viewed tens of thousands of times, and I can tell from our website’s analytics that customers who view our videos are more likely to buy from us.

Here are five tips that we learned about creating winning videos. These tips will not only tempt viewers to hit the play button, but keep them watching the whole way through.

1. Make it personal.

If your video doesn’t have a personality, then neither does your business – at least not as far as the viewer is concerned. Generic shots of b-roll office environments and stock photography tell viewers that your company is just that – a generic, stock, unoriginal service. People want professional, but they don’t want boring. Don’t be afraid to show footage of actual employees – maybe a few seconds of greeting from your CEO if possible. This will yield a more personal feel and a better connection with potential clients. A sense of humor can also establish a sense of personality – but don’t overdo it! You don’t have to be doing standup comedy in your office, but a few quirky scenes or funny lines can be what keep your viewers from clicking away.

2. You can get a big response without a big budget.

Just because you’re producing video content doesn’t mean you have to pay for a Hollywood movie. There are plenty of affordable services and software products that let you record, edit and produce videos from one interface. If your business provides a Web service or computer software, you can use applications to record screens of the product in action, and then add audio narration later. Just remember to try to get some human faces in there for the personal touch.

3. Make a tutorial.

Tutorial or how-to videos are a great excuse for providing video content. Not only will it provide another play button to hit, but the content can clarify any aspects of your service that are difficult to explain with text alone. Customers want to know exactly how a product or service works before purchasing. Providing a set of how-to’s will allow potential users a view into the user experience, and give current users a guide for using your product most effectively. Screen recording and adding narration is a perfect technique for this kind of content.

4. Add some tunes.

Adding light music to the background of your videos helps with flow and makes your content more memorable. There are plenty of open source tracks floating around the Net that you can use for free to add some character to your video. Music sets a tone for your content, whether that’s upbeat, fun, professional, modern or something else. In addition, music will help with the flow of the video by filling in any awkward gaps between voice narrations.

5. Post it on YouTube.

Posting your video on YouTube is a great way to increase the video’s views. Since your videos are marketing vehicles, you want them to be visible to anyone at anytime. YouTube is supposedly a bigger search engine than Yahoo, which means more people use YouTube to find information than most other search engines! Use the power of YouTube’s search to drive views of your videos. Pick short, optimized titles for the videos, and put keywords in the video description part of YouTube. When posting a video on YouTube, include a clear call to action both in the video and in the description. For example, encourage people to visit your website or call your sales number.

If you haven’t already taken on the realm of video production, those tips should get you started. I recommend starting with an introductory video to outline your business, and then moving on to tutorials and specifics. From there, use your videos to enhance your website, fuel your blog, build your Youtube/ social media channels–and watch the page views climb.

I’m sure I’ve got more to learn about successfully using video to sell! What have you found that works with video for your company?

The post 5 Tips for Creating Winning Small Business Videos appeared first on Small Business Trends.