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Five-Minute Fitness - Quick Ideas For Keeping Fit When Working At Home

Keywords:

work at home moms,work at home mothers,WAHMs,fitness for work at home moms,work at home mums

Article Body:

One of the most difficult things about working at home is scheduling a proper fitness routine. If you are a Work At Home Mother and are having to contend with kids, housework and running a business too, you will have to make a special effort to schedule some exercise into your day. I find the best way of doing so is to squeeze in as many five minute bursts of activity as I can, either with the kids or without, and to try to make them fun too.

If the kids are at home:

Put the baby in the pushchair and the kids on bikes or scooters and take a brisk walk around the block. Getting outside into the open air will improve everybody's state of mind and mood. Walk fast to exercise your cardiovascular system (and keep up with the kids!) and you will return home feeling relaxed and refreshed.

Have a five minute tidy up! Set the kitchen timer, put some music on, and get everybody running around the house to pick up toys, books, clothes and shoes and return them to their proper places. Make it fun and the kids will enjoy it and willingly join in. Make it fast and you might even improve your fitness too!

What is the weather like? Can you take the kids out into the yard (garden) for a five minute run-around? Run races, do some star jumps, and just mess around. If you can't get outside, clear a space and do a five minute exercise routine with the kids indoors. Make it a daily event, and vary the routine to include walking and running on the spot, skipping, star jumps, stretches and bends, making faces, shaking out your fingers and toes - whatever you and the kids will enjoy!

During school term time:

Walk the kids to and from school. This is a great way to spend some quality time with your kids, is much less stressful than driving, and helps them arrive at school in the best mood for their day too. Can you jog or run home afterwards? If you live too far away from school to walk, perhaps you could park a little way away and walk the last bit (which will help you avoid school congestion too).

If the kids are at school and you are rushing to get something done before the school day ends, you can spend far too much time in your office and quickly get stale! Sometimes you just have to force yourself to take that break. even if end-of-school is looming. Try walking out of the front door with watch in hand and time yourself for 2.5 minutes. Stop, turn around, and go back home again. You will feel much better for it and be refreshed when you sit back down at your desk.

If you have time on your own:

Break your day up - and make sure that you plan your breaks in advance. I keep it simple by scheduling a five minute break every hour. If I am very engrossed in a project I sometimes set a beeper to remind me! I have a list of five minute activities to do and during a full work at home day I will probably achieve 6 or 7 of them.

Do you have stairs? Climb them! Time yourself and keep going for five minutes, no less. If you don't have stairs, buy a mini-step machine. They don't cost much, are easy to store in a corner, and they work!

No time to get out and about? Stretch! I have a card on the wall behind my monitor with the word "STRETCH!" printed on it in huge letters. When I get involved in a project I sometimes hardly look up from my keyboard and monitor for hours - but when I do, and notice the card, I remember to stand up, stretch everything out and take a 5-minute breather. Try standing about two feet away from your desk, bending at the waist and placing your hands on the edge of the desk to help support your body. Hold for thirty seconds and then stand up straight and take several deep breaths. Repeat twice more. Stretching out your back like this help release tension in the spine and shoulders. Shake out your arms and fingers, then your feet; stretch up tall and then touch your toes and do whatever else it takes to ease out those kinks!

Keep some tennis balls in a desk drawer and squeeze one in each hand as hard as you can for 10 second bursts. This is a great exercise to do when you have been typing for too long. Take those same tennis balls and roll them around under your feet (taking your shoes off first!) This is almost ridiculously pleasurable! (Tip: keep the tennis balls hidden away and out of reach to prevent them mysteriously disappearing from your office and reappearing in the car, garden or toy cupboard).

Try a five minute resistance band workout. Resistance bands are cheap, easy to store, and effective - and can be used to exercise many different areas of the body. Follow the instructions that come with the resistance band for a quick exercise routine - or try a search on Google for ideas. You can achieve quite a lot in five minutes with these.

Dumbbells are another good investment for a quick exercise routine. Get a range of weights and a storage rack, but make sure that they are stored safely away from children, who should NEVER play with them. Learn a quick dumbbell routine for the arms, back and shoulders. Personally I love bicep curls - they make me feel powerful! Find your favorite exercise and schedule it into your day.

Finally - and I hesitate to mention this one - a five minute stint of housework can break your work routine and, if you do it energetically enough - can be part of your fitness regime! I try to make these little spurts of housework into a time challenge and I schedule them into my day. For example, on Thursdays at 11.00am I might strip the beds. First, I open up ITunes and put one of my favorite tracks on. Then I run round like a mad thing trying to strip down 3 sets of beds, get the first lots of sheets into the washer and sit back down at the computer before the track ends. It may sound silly, but it makes housework a little more fun and less of a chore. A five minute sweep, vacuum or mop, if done energetically, can count towards your daily exercise and make you feel virtuous and house-proud too!

Electronic Cards: A Winning Business Solution for Keeping the Attention of Prospects and Costumers

E-cards, being a very good example of tradition and innovation fusion, are today’s Marketing Professionals’ lucky charm in attracting new clients and retaining the old ones.

Keywords:

Electronic card, business solution, clients, marketing

Article Body:

Embracing the same age-old adage of keeping people together, greeting cards have become invincible in the business and communication industries.

If cards are yielding power in keeping distant friendships and relationships stronger and longer, why not apply the same principle to our clients and business partners?

That is exactly what many successful businesses are doing. They make use of anything that is proven effective, and then try to apply it to another area.

E-cards, being a very good example of tradition and innovation fusion, are today’s Marketing Professionals’ lucky charm in attracting new clients and retaining the old ones. They use electronic cards to boost sales by sending them to clients: old and new, as a substitute for newsletters.

Since the web is chalk full of free e-card websites, this strategy is unarguably less-costly than any other marketing means. And since these cards are grouped according to occasions, we can bet there is an appropriate card for every single event. For instance, we can come up with a send-to-all card for important occasions such as Christmas, Summer vacations or Thanksgiving. Or we can personalize it by sending Anniversary or Congratulations cards to companies. We can even send “thinking of you” cards to old clients.

Being remembered and valued is on top of everyone’s list. Few other happy feelings can replace the euphoria of being remembered and valued. And this is made even more special because e-cards often come with pictures, music and poetry lines. No person would say no to something that is sure to add a smile to his day.

Think wisely. Do business passionately. Do it with e-cards.

CRM: Keeping Customers Loyal

Keywords:

customer relationship management, crm, customer loyalty

Article Body:

Customers are now in charge. Thanks to the growth of the Web, it is easier than ever to comparison shop and switch from one business to another with the click of a mouse. However, research has found that in the online market, customers yearn for trustworthiness more than ever.

Customer relationships are a company’s most valuable asset - worth more everything else combined as no customers = no business. Getting and keeping more customers who stay with you longer is crucial. If your customers are loyal to your business, they will be much more likely to choose you over your competitors. Loyal customers will be much more likely to tell their friends about you. Loyal customers spend more and bring in even more new customers. Loyalty is immensely valuable. Research has shown that a 5 percent increase in customer retention rates results in a 25 percent to 95 percent increase in profits.

It’s easy to say customers are our most important asset but turning CRM strategy into bottom-line results is hard work. It means winning the battle for customers’ hearts and minds every day, with each interaction at every customer touch point. Long-standing relationships only arise from trust gained over many transactions and by customers' belief that the company wishes to keep them around rather than drive them away.

Creating a customer-focused company starts with the definition of a CRM strategy, which must then be filled out with new work processes, organizational changes, and even a revamped corporate culture.

To create customers for life, customers who will become advocates with the perception (and don’t forget that perception is reality) they need to believe that you do what's best for your customers, not just what's best for your bottom line.

To do that you need to:

1) Find out what customers want and know what you are providing matches that. Do not start with the bottom line. Profit and cash flow are residuals of attention to the needs and preferences of your customers. Of course, profits are crucial. But long-term cash flow and profits come from regular customers.

2) Be honest and keep things simple, listen, communicate openly and keep your promises. Deliver what you say you will. Far too many businesses focus on ways to keep customers, only to lose sight of the fact that their product or service simply isn't what it should be. Make certain that the core of what you do is deserving of long-term customer loyalty, and then look for ways to nurture it. Make it simple to do business with you.

3) Practice what you preach and preach what you practice. Treat your customers like you would like to be treated and then go even further by, in that classic phrase: exceeding their expectations. Give customers reasons to stay. Great service or products are terrific, but it never hurts to lure customers into the long-term fold. How about discounts for regular customers? Customer loyalty is needs to be appropriately valued and rewarded.

4) Nurture employees. “Old-fashioned” solutions still provide the edge. Research shows that a personal relationship with your employees is the key to keeping customers loyal and that happy staff keep customers coming back. Treat your employees as you would want to be treated year after year. Not only does that encourage staff to also do their bit to entice customer loyalty, it's emphasises a supportive, responsive environment. Employee loyalty needs to be appropriately valued and rewarded.

5) Use sensible marketing practices. Not many people enjoy being inundated with telephone calls and mailings so don’t do it! Test, test, test and track the customers who come back. Once you know who your best customers are, the real work begins—convincing them to stay forevermore. Repeat purchase and retention rates capture the real financial ramifications of whether or not a company is delivering high value to its customers.

6) Know the value of your customers, segments and groups. Know who is likely to be loyal. Some customers are more trouble than they're worth. Monitor what goes into keeping a customer satisfied; if it's too costly or simply too much work - it's wrong to say that everyone should be a lifelong customer.

7) Use effective CRM systems, don't let the systems use you. Don't be driven by the vendor or consultant - use them, they're likely to know the technology far better than you. But let customers' needs and everything above drive how you use the technology. Remember it is an aid not an end.

That’s all there is to it!