Simple privacy policy solutions
Does your business sell products or services online? Do you collect people’s contact information via your website so that you can stay in contact and/or provide them with services?
If so, an important part of your business is ensuring you have a privacy policy that complies with Australian regulations and explains how you keep and deal with people’s information.
I’m sure you will know from your own online experiences that most privacy policies on websites (if they have it) are unnecessarily long, use complicated language and are hard to understand, even if you can be bothered reading them in full. Most of us tick the box without even reading the policy because we just want to buy or subscribe and don’t want to waste our time trying to figure out what it actually means. Sometimes though, we might be put off or think twice about purchasing or subscribing when a policy is overly complex does not make clear what the business will do with our personal details. You don’t want to lose even one potential customer because of your privacy policy.
Now, thanks to a project developed through RMIT and the Smart Services Cooperative Research Centre, there is a way for small businesses to have a privacy policy that is simple, easy to understand, and fully compliant with Australian requirements for free.
On Simple Privacy’s website you can enter some essential details about your business (these are important details you should know anyway) and generate a simple, tailored policy. And of course, Simple Privacy’s own privacy policy is clearly documented so you can be reassured before you start providing information!
Spring clean your computer
Are you guilty of keeping every file you’ve ever created or been given? If so, now is a good time to prepare to spring clean your computer and free up some space.
Although computers are now being made with bigger and bigger hard drives and running out of space isn’t such a problem, cleaning up will help your system run faster. Plus, keeping old files and multiple copies only makes it harder to find something when you’re looking for it.
Here are a few handy ways you can save on disk space:
- SpaceSniffer: a good tool for figuring out which files you should delete, especially those you haven’t used in a while.
- CCleaner: another useful piece of software, which will review your files and make suggestions.
- An an old faithful of Windows is the disk defrag. This is a quarterly activity you should think about.
BUT, whichever option you consider using, it is important to save or close all your current work and the applications you are using, and do a back-up beforehand.
If you feel even slightly unsure about doing any of these, have a chat to your IT tech person first.
Emergency procedures – your back-up plan
Pilots have emergency plans. They don’t set out needing to use them and we all hope they never have to. But they’ve g
ot them in the event of an emergency, so they know what they have to do.
In the same way you and your business should have a back-up plan.
I know this flies in the face of all the advice you receive from business coaches, self-help and positive thinking gurus. But I believe an important part of anyone’s business plan is a back-up plan – what will you do if the whole thing doesn’t work out?
You certainly should not spend every waking moment worrying about what you will do if your business fails. That’s a waste of time and a real distraction from what you need to be doing which is focusing and working to make your business a success. That’s exactly why I think it’s necessary to have a back-up plan prepared before you start out. Otherwise, you can end up wasting a lot of time and energy worrying about it in the midst of a crisis.
Just like the pilots with their emergency procedures you need to have a considered and workable solution if the worst happens.
So, my advice for anyone considering starting up a business is to give a little thought to what you would do in the unfortunate event that your business does not work out. Don’t write a huge document, but do have a real plan, then put it away and don’t think about it further.
Then, if in a month or a year, your actual and projected cash flows are miles apart and you start to panic, you can remind yourself that you have a plan just in case things go really awry. That’s comforting, and should allow you to get straight back to the things that matter – making that next sales call, thinking clearly about your next strategic move or whatever.
Having run my own business for more than 20 years now, I have been fortunate not to have needed to implement my “emergency procedures” but I do have a back-up plan of action if I ever need it. It’s one less thing to worry about while trying to run a successful business.
Work faster on Facebook
You may find it a little easier to run your business Facebook page from your computer (rather than your mobile device). If so, you might like some of these shortcut keys to make it a little quicker:
- Open up a search box: Alt+”?”
- Open the home page: Alt+1
- Your profile: Alt+2
- Open the friend requests: Alt+3
- Open the Messages box: Alt+4
- Notifications: Alt+5
- Write a new message: Alt+M
These shortcuts work with Google Chrome. They also work if you use Firefox as your browser but you need to use the Shift key before each one (so opening your home page is Alt+Shift+1).