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Turn It Up Tuesday: Tips from Insightly to Take Your Business to 11

Welcome to Turn It Up Tuesday, where we bring you 3 weekly tips—a tip on running your business, a tip on using Insightly CRM, and a tip on improving your life. Enjoy this week’s tips!

	If You Create it They Will Comment
	Developing an online community is a powerful way to communicate and build relationships with your customers. In fact, 71% of companies surveyed report that they useMuch like a living organism, communities do need to be curated and tended to regularly, so before you take the plunge, consider the following: Commit to the Cause Few people enjoy being weighed down by endless rules, but in a community setting with an open forum, order and civility must prevail. What you want to avoid is becoming overly sensitive or defensive. Customers can provide valuable feedback that can help you improve your product or service, so listen and don’t try to stamp out negative/constructive input. It will make your brand appear inauthentic. Appoint a Community Leader Part police-person, part diplomat, part mentor, it can be challenging to act as community leader. Despite its challenges, it’s a worthwhile effort as it gives you a great deal of insight and interaction with those you can truly advocate for your brand. Constantly assess how you feel you are doing in the role and ask for help and feedback from your peers. Understand Your Demographic It may seem obvious but sometimes we can get so caught up in the excitement of our own business ideas that we forget who we are trying to reach. Conduct surveys before and after you launch your new community. Companies like SurveyMonkey and Typeform offer free versions of their survey builder platform. Community members usually fall into a variety of camps: Avid users, casual observers, and those who need help solving a challenge. Your avid users can be a great source of knowledge and they want to share. Make an effort to authentically engage with your super users and show your appreciation.
	Workaround of the Week: Bulk Editing Contacts for Mass Emails
	If you want to send a mass emails to select contacts (and update the “date last contacted” information), you can start by filtering just those contacts you want to include on your mass emailing list. I created an organization titled “MailChimp” (the service I use). I then link this “organization” to the contacts I send mass emails to. This allows me to filter my contacts using the MailChimp link. Once I have my selected my contact list, I’m ready to bulk edit the contacts to reflect the last date contacted via the following steps: Click the “Select All” box to the left of the “Search Contacts” window and the click the pencil icon. Select the “Change Field Value” box (this activates the drop-down window) Scroll to the “Date Last Contacted” (or whatever you’ve chosen to name it when you added the custom field). Select your date, click “Save Bulk Edits” at the bottom of the page, and you just bulk updated your “Date Last Contacted” peeps! This week’s tip comes from Insightly user, Jeffrey House.
	You say tomato. I say, save time. If you find yourself racing around trying to accomplish multiple tasks, but feeling as if you’ve accomplished very little, the Pomodoro Technique might be right for you. The Pomodoro Technique is a proven and popular time management life hack developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s. The main purpose behind the technique is to work in short time bursts (25 minutes) and take regular breaks. Taking short, 5 minute breaks helps keep the mind fresh. The other key principle behind maintaining focus with the pomodoro technique is effectively managing distractions. Here’s how: Remove all distractions (email, phone, unnecessary browser tabs, manage colleague interruptions) Choose a focus task Set the timer to 25 minutes Work on the task until the timer rings Take a 5 minute break Every 4 sessions take a longer break, perhaps 15 or 20 minutes
	Check out Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial of the best CRM around. Send Us Your Tips. Would you like to share your tips with Insightly customers? Send them to us! If we use one in our weekly feature we’ll send you a $10 Amazon Gift Card! Contact us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or send us an email. About the author: Marta Bright is Insightly’s Content Manager. She’s been writing about the “business of technology” in the Silicon Valley for more than a decade.