as we all know, many jobs are found through networking. therefore, many businesspeople are on the lookout for tools to improve their networking skills. the number of business apps is increasing day by day and smartphones are becoming a portable toolkit for business professionals everywhere.

5 useful iphone apps:

• meet people with happening
• exchange information using linkedin
• meet in the middle using meetme
• organize business cards with worldcardmobile
• manage relationships with contactsjournal

Batching all the similar tasks you have to handle in a certain period can be a very useful support to get work done more easily.

In other words you can work smarter if you do tasks that aim in the same direction at a specific time of the day respectively of the week. This means for example that you do your customer support at a certain block of time and then go on to the next. This keeps you into the subject and you don’t have to switch between them during the day again. Some more points are elaborated here.

project-related work requires very different talents and capabilities. the lack of such capacity creates inefficiencies. by utilizing a community of people with similar issues and needs, these inefficiencies can be minimized through collaboration. co-working spaces enable efficient teamwork by bringing people together in a shared working environment. this interesting post on mashable gives a great overview of why co-working makes so much sense for businesses…

image by mashable

why co-working makes sense for small businesses

image by fastcompany

this neat video by fastcompany provides a few helpful tipps and hints freelancers may use to make the challenges and difficulties that self-employment entails a little less troublesome. gina trapani (author) suggests time management, money, and expectations to be the biggest struggles. what do you think? what do you find demanding about freelancing?

video: freelance survival skills

…because of the competitive nature of the market, excellent salesmanship is becoming increasingly important for freelancers to win over project bids. proposable is an online tool that allows you to build highly customized, branded presentations. amongst other things, the service offers reporting features to analyze the performance of proposals, a variety of templates, an asset library, and a comment management system for real-time feedback.

When starting your business you surely won’t have an overwhelming amount of money to spend on large-scale marketing.
Still there are some things worth spending the money required.

• professional logo
It’s good to invest some money on this one. Your logo needs to reflect the most distinctive features of your business. It needs to be memorable and recognisable amongst all competitors.

• website
Nowadays a website is crucial for most business, even the small ones. Start with a website which is displaying only the most important information. This is easier to handle for yourself as well as for potential users.

• business cards
Get yourself a business card and don’t forget any information crucial to know.
A business card always comes handy, no matter who you meet.

Those 3 seem indispensable, because most of the time you will definitely need them.
Once you actually start making money, you can always use your existing logo for further marketing measures. Your website is established and you can just fill it up with more and more content. Your business cards you will need whenever getting in contact with potential customers or fellow freelancers.

Is there any point missing?
What are measures you would definitely take in the beginning of a new business?

for a creative mind that loves to reach for the sparks that come not from a controlled environment, but from the comfortable space of their living quarters, working from home is the perfect scenario. however, according to the author (lexi rodrigo), there are habits that develop as a result of working from home:

• working in your pajamas or underwear. this does not gear you up mentally for the job at hand.

• not setting working hours. knowing what time of the day that is most conducive for your creativity prevents you from working against yourself and helps you meet deadlines.

• sitting on your butt all day. if you are thinking of saving time and money in dealing with weight and exercise issues, working in 50-90 minutes intervals and resting for about 10 minutes is always a good idea.

• never going on vacation. because you don’t get paid vacation time for working from home does not mean you cannot take a little time off to re-energize mentally.

• working in a productive space. most times the environment you work in influences the quality of your work. find one for creative purposes.

5 bad work at home habits

have a look at this interesting 6-part series on “how to write winning bids and proposals” by salma jafri on wordpl. as we all know many freelancers live from one day to the other, not knowing when they’ll get their next project. getting jobs is essential for survival, no doubt…but, in order to escape the rat race, the author suggests laying the foundation for long-term success:

Part I: How to Find your Niche and Bid Exclusively in It

what strategies do you use?

this is an interesting post by the wsj about what experts predict the requirements for professionals will be for landing jobs of the future. inspiring read.

image by jason schneider