I Don’t Have Any Goals

A number of people that I follow in Facebook and Twitter don’t call their new year’s business directions “goals.” I can see that. But I don’t really get hung up on the words used to describe what my plans are for the year, and I am just now getting things ironed out for 2010. Yes, that’s later than most, but I’ll consider it to be just in time for me.

One of my coaches last year said to make 3 different kinds of achievable goals:

1 Revenue goal – check.

2 Personal Best goals – interesting twist that I love.

3 Scary goals – wow. She described them as the kind of thing that makes you have to breath into a paper bag.From the looks of the things I have written down, I’ve got that covered pretty well!

This week I am doing a vision board for the first time and including items from all these areas. All I really know is that it is going to be a great year for my business, and the direction it will take may be fluid for awhile. I’m going to try to hold the shiny object syndrome to a minimum and just focus on what is right for me and steer clear of any copy cat routines.

This year, the scary goals are what I am most excited about. Go get your own paper bag and stick it by your desk. If you haven’t used it once in the next 3 months, get some bigger plans!

Hey – let me know what scary thing you are planning to do.

30 Days of Thanks – 19

Today as I drove down the interstate with Anita Baker playing on the XM, my sun roof open, glorious blue, fall skies, it occurred to me that this was my perfect kind of day. I was wearing my favorite suit with my heels and panty hose (egad. do they still make those?) and excited to be the speaker at the Chamber of Commerce luncheon. It makes me very happy to go to a networking event. Call me crazy, but I love it so. I’d do this every day of the week. Love dressing up and meeting new people. Love sharing and helping other business owners. Love thinking about how they can use new marketing ideas to boost their businesses. Love the feeling of unlimited potential in the room. Today I am very grateful for networking events!

When To Stop Talking

I have several friends that prefer to communicate via text message, and that’s a nice change at times. As much as I love to talk on the phone, there is something really great about just sending a fast message to say, “Hi.” The problem for me comes in ending the conversation.

When you talk to someone on the phone, there are just a few ways to end the phone call. Usually, just a fast “goodbye” from both parties and you hang up. However, the text message conversation hasn’t been as clearly defined for me. For example, one of my friends and I text early in the morning before meeting to walk. Our schedule can vary somewhat day to day, so a message or two lets us know what time we are both able to leave. The text conversation usually goes like this:

“we walking today?”

“yes. how long?”

“10 mins?”

“perfect. see you then.”

At this point there could be another message or two. Possibly: “OK. See you.” Or maybe no additional messages. If there isn’t a response, does that mean the other person didn’t get my message? Or did they get it and not want to send me a response…?

What seems to throw me is the text conversation that ends with a “K.” Do I need to “K” back? Or if I get a “C U soon” do I need to send a “K” or a “C U2″? Or if they send me a smiley face does that require one from me? (hope not. I’m not a smiley face person!)

Is it just me? Or has this crossed your mind, too?

Smile When You Say That!

Last Friday my husband and I went on a short vacation. We drove to Branson, Missouri, and stayed in a condo on Table Rock Lake. All in all the trip was fine. We wanted to get away from work for a few days and relax. We were completely able to do that. This was our first time to stay in the area, and my parents drove the 75 miles from their house to join us one day.

I won’t bore you with the details, but my hubby and I were totally taken aback at the lack of customer service we encountered at this “resort.” It was surprising enough during check-in that we were almost afraid to call and tell them that our oven wasn’t working. (The breaker was tripped.) Besides being unfriendly, they didn’t know the answers to the most basic questions we asked about the area. The next morning I went to the Guest Services desk to get some ideas and was met with the most flippant person I have ever met. It made me laugh it was so bad.

This was compounded by the resort having no place to sit and enjoy the spectacular scenery from their property. We were on a hill above the lake, an island directly in front of the property, and lots of other hills like ours surrounding us. Totally beautiful. Some of the rooms had a lake view, but we were not granted one of those. So we would march out of our room, walk 100 yards down the parking lot, and go to the only grassy area there was (which was by two gigantic dumpsters) and stand in the 15 foot wide strip of weeds and admire the view. There was no landscaping, no food, no activities, and no internet. But we took the lemons and made lemonaid.

I guess the moral of the story is that there really must be a problem getting good help these days! I’m sure that management could do a much better job in training employees to smile and say “Welcome.” They could make sure employees knew that they really did have newspapers delivered to the property. (funny story) They could show them around the resort property, and the popular resort town and make them familiar with the kind of things guests would want to know. just saying.

How does all of this relate to YOUR business? Be helpful and give the best customer support you possibly can. Smile when you greet clients and tell them thank you. Smile even if you are on the phone. It makes a difference in the sound of your voice. If you don’t know the answer to a question, tell them you will find out and follow up with them. Treat others better than they expect to be treated. Be nice and apologize if they had to wait or if something wasn’t right. It’s just the simple “under promise and over deliver” policy.

Wishing you fabulous vacations…

Always Ask Questions

My mom taught me somewhere along the way that you should always ask questions when given the opportunity to do so. As an adult who has been in more training sessions than I care to remember, this has served me well. Not a class goes by that I don’t ask one, and usually so many questions, that other people probably get annoyed. But I figure it’s my time and money and I want to learn all I can.

Now, asking questions doesn’t just apply to a classroom situation. The same is true on a teleseminar or conference call. But the real proof is in a public forum or attending a lecture or a speech that someone is giving. For example, a few years ago, Doro Bush (daughter of President H.W. Bush) spoke at a luncheon I was attending. My friends at the table were somewhat surprised when I raised my hand to ask a couple of questions about security at the White House. It’s part of my nature to be formulating some questions during a presentation, because there is ALWAYS the opportunity to ask. Don’t you know I would be at that microphone at a Town Hall meeting?

The same should be true for you in business. Be listening and watching for the opportunity to ask questions. Seek out experts in your field and find a way to connect with them. Twitter is a great place to do that. Craft an online survey using a tool like SurveyMonkey.com. Talk to people in your target market and ask them what their issues are and what problems they have in their own companies, or with their clients. By asking questions you will get the information you need to craft a better solution for them. Without knowing what problem to solve, you may end up with a product or service that doesn’t solve any problem they have. Don’t assume you know what they want and need.

My challenge to you: ask a question at the next networking meeting, teleseminar, or presentation you attend. It’s a great way to stay involved with what the speaker is saying, and you might learn something REALLY interesting.

I’m a Sucker for Space

Tuesday night on the 10 o’clock news they announced that the space shuttle / space station would be flying overhead from 6:04 – 6:11 am the next morning. It would be traveling from the NW to the ESE and be the “bright moving light in the sky.” I happily went to bed thinking that I would try to get up for that rare vista.

Before I tell you what happened, we need to travel back in time to the fourth grade. I was in Mrs. Bryson’s class at Villa Del Rey Elementary in Baton Rouge. This was a year filled with astronomy. We learned all about nebulas, quasars, stars and space. We would go outside and count sun spots and watch them move around the sun. (I think paper plates were involved in that!) I can still remember the report I wrote on nebulas and the goofy drawing on the cover. Have you ever tried to draw a nebula? We went to the planetarium, we watched eclipses, and something in me really took hold.

My love of space continued to grow over the years. I can’t pass a planetarium without wanting to go inside. I look up at the stars every night we are out to see Orion, the Big Dipper, or Cassiopeia. Who wasn’t glued to the TV set watching Cosmos when Carl Sagan explained about the “billions and billions of stars” and how time and space were related? The family accepts my fascination, but usually doesn’t join in on those nights when I run out the front door every five minutes to “see what the eclipse looks like now.”

Fast forward to today. My husband laughs each time they announce the Pleiades meteorite showers, or a comet, or the planets all lining up at night. Because he knows I will be outside in the dead of night in my jammies with my head tilted back as far as it will go just to catch a glimpse of it. I have been known to get in my car and drive down the dark road near my house at 3am and stand outside my car to watch. And, on occasion, I am surrounded by other neighbors getting out of their cars in their jammies.

So, it was no wonder that a gleeful gal was seen dashing out her front door at 6:05 am yesterday in a bathrobe. There I was, standing in the middle of my driveway watching the shiny bright object slowly cross from the NW to the ESE. It was lovely. It was awesome. And it is now just another little secret tucked away among my space memories. I doubt many saw it here, which makes it even more lovely to me.

Did you see it?

Are Your Marketing Efforts Timely?

The last of the area K-12 school districts started this week. Does that seem early to you? After all these years I can’t get used to it, either. It’s been a couple years since my youngest attended here, but with so many of my friends and neighbors with school age children, it’s never far from my mind. And who can resist the pull of school supplies on sale? I still stock up on notebook paper and pens for my office. They are never cheaper than right now.

On Sunday I was browsing through the store flyers and noticed that one of the big office supply stores had their brown grocery bag in the newspaper that day.  You know the one I’m talking about that gives you 20% off everything that fits in the bag? Anyway, I have used the bag in the past when it came in, but I don’t recall it coming the first week of school before. The first thing I said to Lewis was, “Isn’t that smart marketing? They will certainly draw in a lot of folks to their store this week to capture the middle and high school kids’ supply lists.” From past experience I know that you can stuff a lot of paper, pens, notebooks, folders, rulers, protractors, paints and index cards in that bag!

That brings me to my marketing tip. Your efforts need to be timely and appropriate. Know your audience and the problems they have and be there at the right time to offer your solution. This may require a little research into the industry. Are there specific times of the year that are busier for them? Are there events that they go to that would enable you to reach many people at once? A good understanding of their issues can save you from inappropriately spending your marketing dollars and time.

Now, I’ve got to find that bag and go buy some index cards, printer paper, and ink. What would you buy?

A Circle of Friends

Last week I had a reminder about how lucky I am for the friendships in my life. Our book club is reading “Girls From Ames” (girlsfromames.com) which chronicles the life long friendship of 11 girls from Ames, Iowa. Not long into the book it became apparent that I, too, had an amazing circle of friends. The difference was that we didn’t grow up from childhood together, but rather, we grew up as adults together.

My husband of 27 years has the great fortune to have a handful of friends that he has grown up with. They maintain a very strong connection, some of them talking weekly. We have done many things over the years with this group, even though we are spread across the south. My children are blessed to witness the power of their friendship, calling each of these men by their nicknames over the years.

My own sisterhood of strength comes from an amazing group of women that I worked with for 15 years at IBM. Of course, many of them had known each other for years before I got there, but even after the last one stopped working there we have continued to meet for lunches, dinners and our annual IBM Girls Christmas Party. My relationship is 30 years long with this group. We have seen marriages, divorces, births, deaths, and many life-threatening illnesses. We circle the wagons at the drop of a hat, and are always there for each other. Lately, we have been meeting more often in suppport of two who are going through some difficult times. I’m pleased to know that these women will always be there for me, too.

I’d like to share part of the book that really says it all. “Having these women in my world has meant not only acceptance, but radiant joy and laughter that knocks me right out of my chair. Through our darkest moments, we have lifted each other up. In every moment of grief we’ve shared, our laughter is a life vest, a secure promise that we will not go under.”

Are you blessed with a great group of friends? I’d love for you to share your story with me.

I Curse Technology

Now, for those of you who know me well, that might come as a bit of a surprise. After all, my entire working life has dealt with selling computers and/or software.  Trust me, there were plenty of days that left me cursing about all that! But computers are just a tool, and a not so reliable tool at times. I was reminded of that this morning when a friend told me she had her laptop in the shop last week. Due to complications she ended up buying a new one, they moved all her data (not copied) to a brand new laptop, and then the new laptop wouldn’t work. You can bet that she was cursing a bit.

I know what you are thinking. Backup! Yes, that is what I was thinking, too. All of us understand we need to do it, and yet we put it off. I used to be very lazy about backups, but after my third hard drive crash, with nothing recoverable at the end, I changed my tune.  So here is your lecture about backing up your data. “Do it. No excuses.”

Here are some options you should look into, whether you are a business owner or an individual with just a home computer.

• Flash drives – each Sunday look at all the flyers and see how cheap they are. You can buy them at WalMart or Walgreens or Best Buy. Copy your documents and your pictures to them.
• External Hard Drive- I now have two external drives. They store another copy of all my documents and pictures, as well as all the backups of my email and folders. Now that my laptop is running low on disk space, I am running some of my software off of one of these external drives. A nice external drive will be anywhere from under $100 to $300.
• Carbonite – this is an offsite backup company that backs up all the files on your computer and stores them for you. I pay a low yearly fee for this (about $80). The software quietly sits on my computer, and as I add or update files, Carbonite quickly makes a copy of it. It does this all without me having to remember. There are other companies like Carbonite. They just happen to be the one I use.
  

  backup

If I should lose a file from my computer, or the whole computer dies, I am satisfied knowing that all my data is in several places. You just can’t be too careful.

A good rule of thumb is to backup your email no less frequently than once a week. I do this at the end of the day when I am leaving my desk. It takes a little while because I keep so many emails. (maybe an hour) I’d be in trouble if I lost my emails!  I store this backup on my external hard drives. If I wanted to, I could put a copy on my laptop and it would get backed up to Carbonite.

One other thing I do is keep track of all the software programs I have added to my system in case I have to rebuild it. You can create a folder called “Downloads” and store all the software you have downloaded and installed. Back this up to the external drive, as well. You still have the CD’s for the “box” software you purchased, so you don’t need to back that up.

All of these things let me sleep a little better at night. My plan is to be prepared for anything to happen. My next step is buying another computer and just having this little ol’ laptop as backup for those just in case times. You’ll be reading about that…

Do you have any other suggestions for backup?

Accountability Partner

Mondays are the day I normally talk to my Accountability Partner. Shellie is the sounding board I count on each week to give me the honest feedback I want on whatever is going on in my business. We have known each other for years, and worked together in our last corporate job. When our boss retired we stumbled upon AssistU.com and their Virtual Training Program. As fate would have it, we went through in the same class and started our own businesses. Today, Shellie was out of town doing a software demo for a potential new client. She works with a student management software system and is the world’s foremost authority on how it works in the State of Texas. Oh, and she’s always been the Demo Queen. Man, is she good!

So, I missed my time sharing ideas with Shellie, but we will catch up later in the week. I put my time to rather good use, though, writing a report that will be available on this site in the next couple of days. There have been so many people asking me about how to get started marketing on the internet and how to use Social Media for their businesses. So, this report will cover all of that. It’s been a long time in coming, and I am anxious to be able to offer it to my readers.

Back to the accountability partner concept. This has been one of the best business tools I have put into practice. Each week we catch each other up on what we have been working on, talk about any issues we might have, brainstorm new ideas to work on, and decide what we will hold each other accountable for during the coming week. It’s wonderful to have someone in your corner, who understands your business, and your strengths and weaknesses.

You should find your own accountability partner. Let me know if you have any questions about how to work with one.