The holiday season can be a notoriously busy and stressful time of year. We all know the feeling of having too much on our plate - both literally and figuratively - this time of year. For a small or home office worker, it's a tough job to deal with the conflicting pressures of the year-end business crunch and holiday season obligations. How can one person do so much without going absolutely mad?
I've found that these free online tools are very helpful for keeping it all together.
Remember the Milk: a web-based application that helps you organize your personal and professional to-do's. The application allows you to input tasks as you think of them and then sends you a reminder when they are due. It also works with e-mail and Twitter. www.rememberthemilk.com
Time To Meet: Need to set up a business meeting or get friends together for some holiday spirits? Time To Meet is a great tool to cut down on the back and forth emails that usually accompany the scheduling of a meeting. Through one email, Time To Meet allows you to get everyone's availability and suggests the times that work best for everyone. www.timetomeet.info
Amazon.com Gift Organizer: The Amazon.com Gift Organizer allows you to plan and track your entire gift giving this holiday season - whether it's for friends and family or clients and colleagues. All you need to do is set up an account, add gift recipients and Amazon will email you with gift suggestions...which you can buy directly from the site. www.amazon.com/gp/gift-central/organizer
Cozi: Cozi is a web-based family organizer that can help you keep your whole family synced during the busy holiday season. Cozi has a shared online calendar, shopping lists, to-do lists and more. You can even share favorite holiday memories in a family journal and enjoy family photos on the site. www.cozi.com
Hopefully these tools will give you some piece of mind this busy holiday season. For more tools that can help you manage your life all the time, check out the popular blog, Lifehacker.
- Greg
Friday, December 18, 2009
Monday, December 14, 2009
Setting the Stage to Win Business
With the end of 2009 now in our sights, what is your business doing to close deals before the end of the New Year? While I can't help you secure viable leads or craft a 'can't-say-no' message, I can provide ideas on how to make sure your proposals get attention, make a lasting impression and help win projects.
At Lexmark, we know a little something about establishing a professional brand image - we're the only company dedicated solely to quality printing. To help polish up your proposals, I recently sat down with my Worldwide Graphics Specialist, Kate Allen, for a brief Q&A.
Q: Does using high quality color printouts matter in a professional proposal? Is it the presentation design or the solid content that will make your company stand apart from the competition?
A: A tangible takeaway never seems to be a bad idea for a professional proposal. For me, having true, high-quality color is imperative. It always hurts the design to have to point out the color being wrong which then hurts the overall presentation flow. People are so visual, it's hard to imagine a well designed proposal doing anything less than making a company stand apart. Of course content matters, but it's easy to imagine the response to two presentations with the same content but different graphic representations. If you give strong visual signals with strong content, there will be positive results.
Q: What advice would you give businesses about how to use graphics to liven up a proposal but avoid overwhelming the message?
A: The best way to make a proposal look professional, without having a professional designer touch it, is to address the small details...
A: Grids and templates are design elements that professionals use a lot, so a template is also a great idea for non-designers. A template is an easy way to address the elements I mentioned before (consistent text size, color and graphics placements, etc) and a great way to make creating a presentation easier on everyone.
Q: Any final suggestions to share on what design elements do and don't work in a winning proposal?
A: I don't think I can stress enough that you can't go wrong with simplicity. If in doubt, do less instead of more.
We can all use feedback when improving our company's branding. Share you own design tips on what has worked and what hasn't in the comments section.
At Lexmark, we know a little something about establishing a professional brand image - we're the only company dedicated solely to quality printing. To help polish up your proposals, I recently sat down with my Worldwide Graphics Specialist, Kate Allen, for a brief Q&A.
Q: Does using high quality color printouts matter in a professional proposal? Is it the presentation design or the solid content that will make your company stand apart from the competition?
A: A tangible takeaway never seems to be a bad idea for a professional proposal. For me, having true, high-quality color is imperative. It always hurts the design to have to point out the color being wrong which then hurts the overall presentation flow. People are so visual, it's hard to imagine a well designed proposal doing anything less than making a company stand apart. Of course content matters, but it's easy to imagine the response to two presentations with the same content but different graphic representations. If you give strong visual signals with strong content, there will be positive results.
Q: What advice would you give businesses about how to use graphics to liven up a proposal but avoid overwhelming the message?
A: The best way to make a proposal look professional, without having a professional designer touch it, is to address the small details...
- Make sure all headlines are the same font size. All bullets need to be the same style (round, square, dashes, etc) and the spacing between the bullets and the type must be consistent.
- Use graphics and photos sparingly. Don't overwhelm the presentation with clip art or effects.
- Ensure continuity in your presentation by adding graphics to the same area each time. That way, when going from one page to the next, the customer's eyes aren't searching for the content.
- Use one color, in addition to black and gray, throughout. The use of too many colors clutters the page and often breaks up the flow.
A: Grids and templates are design elements that professionals use a lot, so a template is also a great idea for non-designers. A template is an easy way to address the elements I mentioned before (consistent text size, color and graphics placements, etc) and a great way to make creating a presentation easier on everyone.
Q: Any final suggestions to share on what design elements do and don't work in a winning proposal?
A: I don't think I can stress enough that you can't go wrong with simplicity. If in doubt, do less instead of more.
We can all use feedback when improving our company's branding. Share you own design tips on what has worked and what hasn't in the comments section.
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