Let’s talk time saving templates
If you create products, then it’s fairly common to have templates to cut or draw around to aid in getting a consistent finished effect and to save production time.
You can apply the same key benefits to your business admin, no matter what you do!
Why you need templates
The consistency templates bring also help you greatly in building the brand familiarity that is needed to help your customers trust you.
Running your own business you wear a lot of “hats” The benefits of supporting your do’er hat by making life easier and saving it time. Templates please your CEO hat because when you hit capacity and feel overwhelmed having templates in place will make delegation a much easier task for both parties. Saving time, having a clearer image to portray to your customers will over and making your work life easier will ultimately leave your business in better shape and lower your stress levels.
We all wear many many hats as a business owner!
What can you create templates for?
There are many possibilities for templates that can be tailored to suit your business needs. My list of top templates every business needs is:
• Email templates, do you find yourself typing out many emails with common situations. Then templates where you can have places highlighted for changeable details to fit specific recipients easily. Good suggestions of email templates are thank you for your inquiry, follow up following a meeting email. Sending a quote format.
• Graphics templates, where elements can be changed subtly to keep variety whilst still staying on brand. Such as changing photos and their position or size or varying layouts or alternating accent colours from your branding. I personally use Canva to do mine but more tips on that later.
• Social Media templates, you can have a list of prompts that have changeable details but are still reusable it makes the task of content creation simpler. One example I like is: Can you ever have too much/many ___________________________? (Which leaves options of for fun or business related endings!
Where can you create and keep these templates for maximum benefit?
As I have already mentioned for anything with a visual element I use Canva. Whether of the free account or the paid version my advice is to design on the desktop version (laptop or computer) as there is more functionality this way. I then have the mobile app on my phone allowing me to open designs and use the share function to send them to relevant platforms. This proves especially helpful for Instagram stories and reels.
Canva itself also offers layout templates to help with design work and you can search for templates with certain elements such as a colour or phrase like “Photo and text.” If you find a template, you like you can then alter colours and texts to suit your branding. Visual templates have interchangeable photos or text but follow a consistent look this again works well on Instagram for a cohesive looking grid and similarly your Pinterest account.
You guess it, this is a Canva creation! and the photo’s could be whatever you want!
Now you have your templates where do you store them for easy access is the next consideration. I am not an apple user so I have no cloud and don’t find Dropbox or google drive that easy so I story all my wordy templates on a Trello board so they can so I can copy and paste or even update them on whatever device I am on and it will sync to my other tech. As I have already said the visuals are on Canva and I save them as Template XYZ then when I want to tweak a design, I simply click make to reuse it. The designs get it’s own name.
To see how I use templates in my business do connect with me on Instagram or pinterest @busy Keys Virtual Assistant
If you’re still stuck on the practicalities of how or where you can create them, I can help with that. My business buzz session is to complete a one-off task that will last you well.