Startup Toolbox

Archive for August, 2009

I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was: How to Discover What You Really Want and How to Get It
By Barbara Sher

Are you one of those people that were born knowing what they wanted to be when they grew up? No? Me, either. I spent years taking aptitude tests, personality tests, skills assessments and everything else I could find to try and help figure it out. I kept waiting, hoping that I’d come across the perfect assessment tool and suddenly the clouds would part, a ray of sunlight would burst through illuminating the answer and a heavenly choir would rise with the appropriate soundtrack. That never happened either.

So, I kept searching. I attended seminars. I tried on jobs. I read books.

And years went by. Still I was no closer to having an answer to the question of which direction I should point my vocational ship.

One day I was in a bookstore, perusing the shelves for the latest in career soul searching material when I saw a title that created a mini version of my desired moment of illumination. “I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was: How to Discover What You Really Want and How to Get It.” I thought “EXACTLY!!”

I snatched it off the shelf, raced home and started reading. The epiphany continued. At first I skimmed through the reading and skipped over the exercises. Then I went back and actually did the work. This book did more for me to help me discover my direction than any other book I’ve read.

Having said that, it wasn’t the perfect tool. Yes, it pointed me in the right direction but it took a bit more refining to fine tune things. But just having a direction was incredibly freeing! I’m very much a planner and it didn’t do a lot to help me in that area. However, that’s also part of what spurred me to start this website. There are lots of folks out there who want to help you figure out our dreams – this one was the best fit for me. There are also lots of folks who want to be your cheerleader along the way while you make it happen. There aren’t a whole lot of folks out there who will help you plot a path from choosing a direction to making it happen so I wanted to help fill the gap.

Anyhoo, if you’re still searching and unsure of the direction you want to go in when you grow up, (although I’m not sure if I ever really want to grow up) this book may be a good fit for you, too.

Happy entrepreneuring!

Katherine

© Yanwe

Today I went into a store to purchase a pack of gum. At the end of the transaction, I said, “Thank you.” The clerk’s response was, “Not a problem.” Am I the only one who hates that response? I mean, every single time I hear it, which is getting to be more and more frequently, I want to respond that of course it’s not a problem, it’s your JOB and you’re being PAID to do it! Whatever happened to phrases like “Thank you” and “You’re welcome” and all the Sir’s and Ma’am’s we used to be taught were just plain good manners? Whatever happened to businesses caring about their customers and treating them well so they’d return and buy from them again? In an age where common courtesy isn’t so common and quality customer service is non-existent, an easy way to set your company apart is to care.

I’m no stranger to being online. I signed onto the internet for the first time in 1997 when I was working at a university and the world wide web was still a novelty. I’ve also had websites before and learned a little bit of software so I could build one myself. However, I am new to the whole ecommerce bit and selling products from my own site instead of using a tool like an auction site or Amazon.

A long time ago, I learned the benefit of not reinventing the wheel, so when I was revamping and expanding my website I started looking at other folks’ sites and seeing what they do and how they do it and trying to figure out what might be a good fit for me. I’ve even signed up for a couple of “free offers” to get more information on the particular system the sender recommends. So far, I’ve been shocked, although I guess I shouldn’t be, at what passes for a quality product.

One person sends me TONS of emails. Now, I know that in the end they want me to buy something and I really don’t mind paying for a good product, but come on, at least make an effort to get it right. Mr. Ton O’Email (not his real name) seemed like a great find…at first. “Let me send you this free information” his site says. I think that sounds great, plus he was recommended to me by someone I know so I plug in my “Junk” email address, the one I use when signing up for contests, email responders, etc. My first email from him was full of “important” information telling me how great he and his products are and if I don’t believe him, just go to so and so’s site at such and such location and they’ll tell you, too! I click the first link. Site not found. Ok, so the web changes every day and no one can keep up with every little thing. On to link #2. It’s something completely different in a language I can’t read. From there, it was much the same, but with only 75% of the links touting his brilliance still in existence, I was less than impressed. So, I emailed him and said “Hey, Mr. O’Email, you might want to update your autoresponder emails because several of the links are bad.” No response. And again, I know folks can’t respond to all the emails they get, especially ones as wonderful and busy as he tells me he is. But that was about 5 months ago and another person I know signed up for his free information just a couple of weeks ago and everything was still the same. Needless to say, I never did spend any money with him.

Conversely, in my ongoing quest, I came across someone who actually acts like they care about you and want to help. Carrie Wilkerson, the Barefoot Executive has been an awesome help to me in the past few weeks. Yes, she still has products to sell, but the free information she gives is quality information. It wasn’t exactly what I was looking for when I found her, but I purchased some things from her that are beneficial to me and my business.

So, what was the difference? I could say, quality products. Carrie puts just as much quality and thought into her free offers as in the items with a price tag. Her links work, when she says she’s going to send something, she does and her site is relevant/current. But to sum it up into one thing, Carrie cares and Mr. O’Email does not.

Mr. O’Email is just looking to make a quick buck from those he affiliates for and I’d be surprised if he has any sustainable ongoing business. I could be wrong, that’s been known to happen, but I kind of doubt it because lately his emails have been more frequent and more frenetic, almost pleading for me to come sign up for his latest deal.

However, I can tell that Carrie truly cares about the people she’s trying to help. Has she ever personally sent me an email that’s not most likely an “autoresponder”? No. Does she still have products to sell? Yes. But at the core, the heart of who she is, it comes through loud and clear – “I want to help you get to where you want to be. Yeah, I may have some tools that will make it a lot easier, but I also have a lot of good information just sitting here for you to make use of it.”

I love that.

Zig Ziglar said, “If you can dream it, then you can achieve it. You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.”

Do you care? At the core of who you are and what you’re business is about, do you care? Or are you merely trying to amass as many transactions as possible before you move onto something else? I don’t know about you, but I want to help people. I want to offer quality products and services to help people get to where they want to be. Long before I ever went into business for myself, I was already asking people about their dreams and aspirations and asking why they weren’t going for it and let’s figure out how to make it happen. It took me a long time to actually start putting a price tag on it because it was just something I loved to do, I didn’t really see it as a viable vocation in Middle Oklahoma where coaches worked with teams in things like football and basketball and such.

So, how about it? Are you giving your customers the best chair or hair cut or carpet cleaning or widget or whatever that you possibly can? Do. You. Care? If you don’t, I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re struggling in this economy. Now, I know there are plenty of businesses that offer spectacular service and/or products that are still struggling but I’m not one to rail against the President or Congress or whomever under the guise of the economy. The economy goes in cycles. There are good years and bad years, round and round it goes; always has, always will. I’m a proponent of the fact that if you are wise in the years of abundance, you will more easily weather the years of leanness.

There are many companies that could avoid failing if they simply stepped up and set themselves apart by offering a quality product or service for a fair price. I don’t know about you, but I’m willing to pay more for something if it’s a pleasant experience. No kidding, there’s scientific proof that people don’t usually spend money for the it, they spend money for the experience and if the experience is good, they’ll come and repeat it.

Can your customers tell that you care? If not, you may want to figure out a way to reinforce that you do. Hearken back to a day of quality and service and take notice to how your clients/customers respond. Don’t be surprised if you start feeling better about life in general as well. I know that when I see the light of satisfaction spark in a client’s eyes it makes me feel good, too. More importantly, take note of how many start coming back more frequently simply because they know that you truly have their best interests at heart.

Happy entrepreneuring!

Katherine

Fax machine? We don’t need no stinkin’ fax machine!

I’ve never been a fan of fax machines. It seems like their only consistent feature is jamming. And a new machine only meant jamming in more creative ways. I needed to get my home office set up; I knew that a fax was a necessary evil but I kept putting it off. I was less than thrilled at the prospect but I finally waded into the logistics of set-up. Little did I know that I had options – gotta love options!

When I transitioned into working at home, one of the issues I needed to look at was faxing. I have an all in one machine that has faxing capability but I wasn’t keen on having to toggle back and forth between phone and fax on a land line. I’ve had to do that before and it never worked well. I certainly didn’t want to have the added expense of installing a second line dedicated to the fax. I mean, when you’re just starting out every penny counts, right?!

I was talking about it with a brilliant friend of mine who asked, “Have you ever thought about a web based fax service? That’s what I use and it’s great!”

This woman is a financial genius, and when smart people talk, I try to listen.  I was more than a little skeptical, though. I had heard of efaxing before, but what I’d heard was that it was unreliable with faxes often ending up somewhere in the nether regions of cyber space instead of where you sent them. Also, that the file formats were greatly limited and needed a lot of storage space.

As soon as I got home, I fired up the trusty computer and started researching. Come to find out, efaxing has come a long way baby! Web based fax services are more reliable than ever. The more I read, the more I was persuaded.

• No paper and toner needed, saves trees, good for the environment. Like that. 
• Many allow you to choose your desired file format and include PDFs which is space efficient. Like that.
• Many have reporting functionality if you need to track the metrics of your faxing activity. Probably won’t use it, but like that.
• No phone line needed/monthly service fee is less expensive than having a dedicated line. Love that.
• No long distance charges. Love that.
• Was able to choose a fax # that closely correlated to my business #. Love that.
• Increased privacy; I always hated it when proprietary faxes were left sitting on the machine for anyone to read. Love that.
• NO MORE JAMS!! – LOVE that!

There are a several sites that break down the various services including price and a whole lot of technical stuff that makes my eyes glaze over. I’m listing two, because between them, they cover most of the services available:

http://faxing-service-review.toptenreviews.com/
http://www.faxcompare.com/

I personally use RapidFax and Metro Fax, one for a client and one for my business. I went with different companies just to avoid confusion. My personal experience has been good with both. I’ve had them for over a year and have only had one small glitch with RapidFax. They never figured out what happened, but instead of faxing all of the pages, only one went through. Luckily, I caught it and was able to re-send. It only happened once and I have sent hundreds of faxes. I just try to be diligent about checking the confirmation email to make sure all the pages went through. I also set up a web based email account for the fax # so that my Inbox didn’t get slogged with faxes. The services vary on how long they retain faxes on their server, but the incoming faxes and confirmation emails stay on the dedicated email account as long as I want to leave them there. I save some onto my computer, but most just stay on the email’s storage system. This also reduces my storage space requirements.

The days of the clunky fax machine taking up precious counter space are all but over. If you’re searching for ways to free up counter space, reduce costs, help the environment, or just plain don’t like fax machines, web based faxing may be a good fit for you. There are several services with many different options so there is sure to be one that meets your needs. If you’re still not sure, try a few on! Many of the services offer free trials.

Happy entrepreneuring!

Katherine

© Yanwe

“Ignorance or Apathy? I don’t know and I don’t care.” ~ Jimmy Buffett

What’s the more difficult position – not knowing or not caring? When starting a business I’ve often found myself in the position of not knowing something. No matter how smart I might think I am, I have found that I can’t know everything so I often have to go searching for information to fill the gap. But what happens when we know what we need to do but we just can’t muster the motivation to do it? Apathy, procrastination, doldrums, rut, unmotivated – no matter what you call it, it can be a problem that is difficult to overcome. We’re going to look at some ways to overcome both.

Being called ignorant is perceived as a real put down and is often used to describe people who are bound by their prejudices rather than simply without facts. Ignorance is defined as lacking knowledge or information as to a particular subject or fact. We can’t know everything so we’re bound to be ignorant of something at some time. There is more access to more information today than there has ever been in history. Not only do we know more, but the access is incredible.

In the not so distant past, only the very wealthy and primarily men, had access to books and the abundance of knowledge that was available at that time. The internet has made it possible to gain more information than you ever thought possible in a matter of moments. We can find out just about anything we want 24/7 with the click of a button – ignorance overcome.

But what do we do when we know what we should be doing but just don’t do it? Sheesh! That’s a whole lot of doing!

This weekend I was working at a client event and early Saturday morning I was playing taxi to the airport so that our Continuing Education speaker could catch his flight. During the hour long trip we started talking about his business. He’s a good speaker with a very relevant message but he’s struggling to get his bookings at the level that he’d like to have them. On the flip side, there are other speakers who aren’t as good at the on-stage delivery but they are consistently getting booked. Not only booked, but booked at rates that are almost double.

What’s the difference? Or, as I put it in one of my favorite questions to others when facing a problem – Why do you think that is? His response was: I know what I need to do, I just don’t do it.

Do you ever feel that way? I know I do.

Apathy is more difficult to overcome than ignorance because we can’t just click a button to feel motivated to do whatever task is preventing us from moving forward. I don’t think it’s that we don’t care, we just don’t care enough. In other words, the consequences of our inaction aren’t painful enough to spark us to action or the promise of the payoff for completion isn’t relevant enough to lure us forward.

So, how do we overcome the problem?

There’s not a quick fix and certainly not a one size fits all solution, but these are a few methods that have been of help to me.

Break it down. Sometimes when I have a particularly daunting task, I look at the whole and just really don’t feel like tackling it. It helps me to break it down into smaller tasks. I’m not a big to-do list person on a daily basis except when it comes to planning large events for clients; then I live by my lists. If I look at the event as a whole, it can be overwhelming. But when I start breaking the event down into all the little things that need to be done, I’m faced with bite sized pieces which are much easier to, umm, digest. I know it can be just as overwhelming to look at a 5 page list of to-do’s but when you wade into the smaller bits, you can spend 30 minutes working on the project and mark off 10 items. Before you know it, you’ve whittled down a daunting list into a sea of checkmarks. I love that sense of accomplishment.

Relieve the stress. I find it easier to seek diversions when I’m feeling particularly stressed. I often feel stressed when I’ve had my head to into a project for too long. Sometimes I just need to walk away and change focus. It may help to go for a walk or spend 30 minutes playing with the dog. I’ll go throw a load of clothes in the washer, anything to reorient my brain for a few minutes.

Change up your routine. Occasionally I’m just lonely. Going from working in an office with dozens and dozens of other people to working at home alone can make it easy to be diverted by the TV or playing around on the web. When I sense that creeping in, I make a point to set up some lunch dates with friends. That brief interchange with others helps me come back feeling refreshed and ready to tackle things anew.

Schedule play time. Take a break. Schedule some slacker time into your schedule. You’re more likely to keep plowing through when you can look at the clock and see that it’s only 30 more minutes until you have your “legal” half hour of play time to surf the web, play a game or watch TV.

Create accountability. Even when you’re the boss, you may need to be accountable to someone. Now wait a minute, I’m not saying you need to go out and find a j-o-b again; there are other ways to be accountable. Find a group of like-minded folks to hang out with. In Think and Grow Rich Napoleon Hill talks about the concept of a Master Mind Alliance or I’ve more often seen them called a Master Mind Group. Each group is unique in that it is made of up unique individuals and the agenda belongs to the group but the general focus is on brainstorming, feedback, being a sounding board, accountability and working together to attain new heights.

Outsource/Delegate. In the case of the underbooked speaker, when we got down to it, he was having a problem following through when it came to keeping in front of existing and potential clients so that he was in the forefront of the event planner’s minds when they were deciding on speakers for their events. He was honest and said that just wasn’t something he enjoyed. We all have things that we really don’t enjoy doing but some things are harder to handle than others. If you have something specific that is holding you back, and it happens repeatedly, perhaps you need to hire someone else to do that for you. If you can’t afford to add to your staff, you may be best served by outsourcing that part of your business. Often other service professionals are willing to barter services in lieu of money.

I’ve saved for last; the two things that I feel are the greatest antidotes to apathy.

Get a vision/Renew your vision. Do you know where you’re going? If not, spend some time thinking about where you’re headed and find a way to keep that vision in front of you. I have my “dream board” in pictures and my personal mission statement plastered all over one wall in my office so that I see it every single day. If you know where you’re heading, remind yourself. Put up some pictures or quotes or statements that you will see every day to help motivate you to keep moving toward that dream.

Set goals/Refresh your goals. Do you have goals? I think that goals are one of the most important tools for anyone, business person or worker bee. Goals will help drive you forward. Goals should be set in increments instead of having one end goal in mind. The great thing about goals is that you can set those increments where ever they work best for you. I work with 3 month, 6 month, 1 year, 5 year and 10 year goals and revisit my goals every quarter to see if they need tweaking or realigning based on where I’m headed. Goals aren’t ever to be set in stone, just as we evolve, our goals should evolve with us.

Whether you find yourself faced with ignorance or apathy, don’t despair, both can be overcome. Information cures ignorance and information is readily available with the click of a mouse button, just be smart about it and double check the facts so that you make sure what you’ve found is really the information you need. However, apathy may be more difficult to overcome. It’s certainly not insurmountable, but there are several methods you can use to help keep you motivated. Try a few on for size and see which works best for you.

Happy entrepreneuring!

Katherine

© Yanwe