This week I setup a new tool that helps my software development and made one tweak to an existing tool that makes customer support easier. Their cost is minimal, only needing time but both under an hour. But they’ll improve two of my core business processes. Processes that I do at least a hundred of …
Tag: processes
Detecting when processes are getting too stressed
I started saving garden seeds this year. As part of the process I’m doing germination tests on them to make sure they’re viable and likely to grow. The tests involve keeping them wet and checking on them every few days while recording their progress. The details aren’t important here. What is important is my record-keeping …
Take advantage of extra capacity when you have it
With summer in full swing here, there’s very few new plants I’m starting for the garden. Summer plants are already planted and there’s not a lot of fall plants that can get started quite yet. Which means I have some empty space in the garden and in the seed starters. So I decided to take …
Optimize your critical marketing processes and ignore the rest
Last week I finally got around to cleaning up my list of writing ideas. It’s been a year since my last cleaning so I took this time to review all of my ideas, throw away old ones that aren’t relevant, and group them into new categories. It took some time but there were several hundred …
Picking up piles of pesky paper
Last week I finally battled the paperwork. I’ve gone digital as much as possible but there are always holdouts that accumulate. Especially when you just keep stacking it for four years. So last week I scanned, shredded, filed, and archived my way through the various piles. To-be scanned. To-be filed. To-be shredded. Surprisingly the three …
Replacing stressful and time-consuming processes to save time and pain
I’ve started taking a stronger interest in my own SEO process recently. For most of 2019 I was doing the minimum for much of it (e.g. creating content, adding structured data). But with the growing importance of having stable, low-cost marketing channels I’ve renewed my focus in it. And oh boy was I making it …
Change is happening but you can make it easier on your Shopify store
While many of us have immediate fears and problems to solve with the coronavirus, the majority of us will need to figure out how to run our business post-pandemic. Things may get back to "normal" but it won’t be the normal we had before. Government policies will be different. Markets will be different. Most of …
1,238,809 words and all I got was this marketing asset
Most of my successes are the result of consistent effort over a long time. While many others blast off the launchpad, they end up fading out when they can’t sustain the pace or the fad they took advantage of moves on. One of my constants has been writing. I have a script that keeps a …

Creating standardized product templates in Shopify
Today’s tip is from Eleda from Triple Mountain Model Horses. She describes her process to create a standardized product template. Hi Eric, In response to the customer asking how to add boilerplate text to her descriptions: Another option you could suggest – albeit this would only help with new products going forward, not retroactively as …

Learn how to create a simple customer retention process for your ecommerce store
Hopefully by now you see the importance of doing something to treat your repeat customers as well as possible. Like the idea I gave you the idea of writing custom thank you cards for each repeat order. But you probably ran into a common problem: at a certain point it can be difficult to keep …