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How many times have you looked around your office and cringed at all the piles of paperwork? You’re not alone, says Barbara Hemphill, author of “Taming the Paper Tiger at Work” and president of Hemphill Productivity Institute. People everywhereespecially top executives and entrepreneursare finding themselves bogged down by the clutter that’s taken over their desks.

As a top dog, how can you ensure that your executivesand youare doing everything possible to engineer a creative environment? Hemphill offers insights on how to clear the way for strategic thinking as well as how hiring and training your dream strategic assistant can be the best investment you’ll ever make.

Gone are the old days in business, when the top brass had secretaries and assistants at their disposal, many of who spent part of their days trying to look busy.

“Now the pendulum has swung too far the other way,” Hemphill explains. “Because of cutbacks in staffing budgets, the top dog now spends part of his or her day performing administrative tasks, following up on details and filing paperwork.

Most executives and entrepreneurs are dreamers and thinkers, not organizers. “The top dogs come up with ideas,” Hemphill says. “They’re not as good at following throughthat’s the purpose of a team. The papers and files piled high on their desks only serve as reminders of ideas that didn’t work. You can’t be a visionary when you’re bogged down in paperwork.”

© Barbara Hemphill is the author of Kiplinger’s Taming the Paper Tiger at Work and Taming the Paper Tiger at Home and co-author of Love It or Lose It: Living Clutter-Free Forever. The mission of Hemphill Productivity Institute is to help individuals and organizations create and sustain a productive environment so they can accomplish their work and enjoy their lives. We do this by organizing space, information, and time. We can be reached at 800-427-0237 or at www.ProductiveEnvironment.com

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If you have auto response system set up for following up your customers or prospects, you may just use one or two purpose. Here is a list of brainstorming ideas for you to get more out of it.

1. Collect leads with your autoresponder. You will get an e-mail digest of everyone’s e-mail addresses who requests information from your autoresponder.

2. Publish a price list of all the products and services that you offer. You could also include order forms, product descriptions, and other sales material.

3. Publish free reports in autoresponder format. The reports should be related to your business or web site. Giving away free stuff will quickly increase your traffic.

4. Collect vital customer satisfaction information by publishing a survey in autoresponder format. This type of information will help you serve them better.

5. Instead of answering every customer question that’s e-mailed to you, publish ” Frequently Ask Questions” in autoresponder format. This will save time and money.

6. You could publish your testimonials or endorsements in autoresponder format if you don’t have the room in your ad copy. It’s more effective to include all of them.

7. Provide back issues of your e-zine archives in auto- responder format. This will give your subscribers and web site visitors easy access to them.

8. Publish your entire web site in autoresponder format. Sometimes visitors don’t have enough time read your entire site. They could print it out and read it offline.

9. You could offer your ebook in autoresponder format. Your visitors won’t have to download it or have the software to read it right away.

10. You could publish the terms and conditions to any business transactions in autoresponder format. This could include return policies, purchases, refunds etc.

Follow up is essentials for your business no matter you run online businiess or traditional business. It is said that “it takes 7 follow ups to make a sale”. If you do not have auto response system set up yet, you can get a list of service from http://www.best-internet-businesses.com Good luck for your online success.

Julia Tang publishes “Smart Online Business Tips” Newsletter which helps people to start, run and grow Internet businesses. To get tips, tactics, reliable business opportunities and promotional tools, plus over $200 free bonuses, you can visit http://www.best-internet-businesses.com

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