Happy Independence Day!

A quote for the day:

I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in providence, for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth. — John Adams

Where do I begin? How to set goals that matter

Over the years I have heard a lot of debate about the best starting point to use when setting  goals. Begin with the ultimate vision? Begin with an analysis of current conditions to identify opportunities? Like a ship’s sail in fickle winds, the prevailing view has shifted one direction, then turned back again.

"Bindu Wave" by artist Paul Heussenstamm, puzzle by Connections Puzzles, photo by Margaret Lukens

I thought of this recently as I worked a jigsaw puzzle.

When working the puzzle, I could pick up each piece and compare it to every other piece until I hit a match. But what a laborious, boring, and inefficient process! We work puzzles by looking at the big picture on the box, the ultimate goal, then organizing our small actions to promote that larger goal.

The same is true of our businesses. We perform a “gap analysis”. We address the questions:

• where do I want to be?
• where am I now?
• what do I have to do to cross the gap?

Last week I led a group in learning to use the tools of Get Clients Now, the book by master coach C. J. Hayden. An essential step in the program is to determine how much business you have now, consider how much you really want, and then map out the steps needed to cross that gap.

• Know where you are.
• Be clear about where you’d like to be.
• Identify steps you believe will advance you over the gap.
• Measure your progress.
• Adjust your plan based on your findings.

As they say on the shampoo bottle, lather, rinse, repeat.

What’s the picture you’re  aiming for? What pieces do you have to work with? What steps have you taken? What steps would you like to take next? Comment here.

(Note: the puzzle pictured is available at Jigsaw Java, a very nifty puzzle and coffee bar. Owner Mary Albitz welcomes fellow puzzle fanatics as well as the occasional puzzle enthusiast – like me- at her shop in downtown Redwood City, CA. And puzzles are available by mail. This particular puzzle, by Connections Puzzles, is part of a chakra series by artist Paul Heusssenstamm.)

Six things fathers have taught me about the good life

In recognition of Fathers Day, I would like to share a few of the lessons that fathers have taught me about the good life.

image courtesy of artfiles.art.com

Quality: Forget perfection, strive for excellence.

Craftsmanship: Never blame your tools.

Mastery: Begin with baby steps, but don’t stop there.

Diplomacy: The first lesson in the art of war is to avoid it if at all possible.

Patience: When using a saw, it is patience, not brute strength, that makes the best cut.

Time management: You can always think of more things to do in a day than you can get done. Choose the ones that matter most.

My own father has given me many things, material gifts and the immaterial ones, gifts of bicycles and lessons in riding them. Along with lessons in how to make a living, he supplied lessons in how to make a life.

To my father, my father-in-law, and to all our father figures, I wish a very happy Fathers Day.

What lessons in living a good life did you learn from a father? Leave a comment here.

How to Get Clients Now

Getting more clients is crucial for nearly every small business owner. Are you frustrated because the clients just aren’t coming?

Help is here, now.

This summer, doing a small part to move our economy forward, I am giving away just 20 places in the “How to Get Clients Now” teleclass.

In my two-part teleclass, I will train you to use the Get Clients Now system at no charge.

Get Clients Now is based on the book by master coach C. J. Hayden. (Maybe you’ve already got the book on your shelf, but you haven’t yet put it to work.) I am a licensed Get Clients Now facilitator, and I regularly lead Get Clients Now programs for small business owners.

In this teleclass, I will train you to use the tools in the Get Clients Now program. These are tools that are custom-made for your business, tools you can use again and again.

The two-part class meets at 3 pm Pacific time, 6 pm Eastern this Friday, June 19, and next Friday, June 26.

To join me for this special opportunity, please contact me with your name and email address. (I require these in order to send you the materials you need to participate in this valuable class. Of course I respect your privacy and will never trade, use, or sell your personal information.)

Please come fresh and ready to work. This two-part class is a $100 value, but it can be yours without charge if you act now.

I look forward to helping you Get Clients Now.

Questions? Contact me or leave a comment here.

We all do better with help: 8 professionals that can really make a difference

Your time is precious.

There are some things that only you can do. These should get your best attention during your most productive hours.

Others you can do, but don’t enjoy. These may include going to networking events and having face-to-face contact with your prospects, or making a corporate presentation where they’re expecting you, and no one else: no one can do it for you.

Still other tasks rank low on ability, low on pleasure, low on cost-effectiveness, or all of these. These are the things you really want to avoid. You may call them your most odious tasks. Call them your “c” priorities. Call those tasks, “I’d rather be declared bankrupt, required to speak in public, and write my own obituary at the same time.”  These tasks are great prospects for delegating.

A key to succeeding in small business is to focus on the things that only you can do, and outsource the rest. It’s a good strategy for employees in larger businesses, too.

Is there something that you dread? Recently a colleague confessed that he had taken over his QuickBooks data entry to save money during the current economic downturn, but he began dreading the Saturday’s work on the previous Tuesday. As a business coach, I say this is a prime candidate for outsourcing, regardless of economic troubles. If you are good at your business (and this person is), then focus on your core business and get others to help you with the tasks at which you don’t excel.

As a Certified Professional Organizer and business coach, I know how to organize my own home and office. But still, I often hire another professional organizer  to help me. Why? Because we all do better with help.

Consider how you can invite help into your life. The Fidelity newsletter lists eight pros who can really make a difference to your productivity by giving you back stress-free hours.

Are you needing help, but delaying asking for it because you feel that you should be able to do the job yourself? Stop waiting. Hire someone to lend their expertise in areas crucial to your success.

Make up your mind

I received a letter recently from a client. It read in part:

... I also made it to the bottom of my inbox, and I’m not letting things “ripen” there. Your encouragement to “decide to decide” has been helping to prevent things from piling up. …

My client is succeeding because she is deciding.

Professional organizer Barbara Hemphill, author of Taming the Paper Tiger, has defined clutter as “deferred decisions”. A lot of what is lying around our homes and offices is there because we have chosen to put it where it is “for now”.  Too often that day on which we were going to make a permanent choice never comes.

One of the best ways to put your paper organizing into overdrive is to decide to decide. This concept is so important that organizer Kathy Waddill, author of The Organizing Sourcebook, makes it one of the nine key strategies required to become and stay organized.

If you’re holding back because you are unsure how long you need to keep papers, email me for a complimentary records retention guide.

Maybe you’re holding back because on some deeper level you’re unsure what the paper, email, and other clutter actually means to you. This is when I find coaching to be an effective tool to help my clients get organized. I ask coaching questions to help clients clarify what meaning is invested in the papers.

Know what you need to keep. Consider what you want to keep. Then take action to discard, delegate, file, and act.

What have you decided lately? What happened when you did? Leave a comment here.

Memorial Day: a quote

A quote for the day:

Washington Monument Reflected in Vietnam Memorial

True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.

— Arthur Ashe (1943-1993), American tennis champion

2009 NAPO Organizers’ Choice Awards

Last week at the annual conference of the National Association of Professional Organizers, we (the 800 or so organizers present) voted for the recipients of the 2009 Organizers’ Choice Awards. And the winners are…

Taking “Best Product – Business” was OfficeMax, for the [IN]PLACE System by Peter Walsh. A series of plastic binders, files, totes, envelopes, and color-coded labels, the [IN]PLACE System provides is a good-looking collection of tools to assist with efficient paper management.

The components include a number of thoughtful details, such as color-coded labels that change easily among right, left, and center locations. Now if you love the sight of your files marching across the drawer (right, center, left, repeat) or if you want all left-justified (we all read from left to right, after all) — whatever you like, you can set it up.

The desktop sorter has adjustable-width sections. Discreet notches in the file folders keep files from slipping out the side of the sorter. It all works. The plastic ensures durability; the translucent finish provides visual calm.

The award for “Best Product – Technology” went to The Neat Company, for their NeatDesk product. Just as the term “paperless office” has become a universal joke, the technology is developing to make it a reality. Desktop sheet-fed scanners coupled with cheap computer memory and superior character-recognition software have begun to bring the paperless environment into view.

NeatDesk will scan a batch of mixed paper — just feed it your business cards, receipts and papers in one go. Data can be exported to the most popular software programs you already use, such as Outlook, TurboTax, Excel, and QuickBooks. Unlike the company’s popular NeatReceipts, which is available in a Mac version, NeatDesk is still PC-only for now.

Though the economy kept many exhibitors away from the NAPO conference this year, the exhibit hall featured a heartening number and variety of companies intent on making our lives more organized with their products. With new and improved systems available every year, especially on the technology side, I see a future that does offer real improvement in the modern office.

Just remember: the organized mind comes first, not the containers or the technology. Containers applied to clutter generally create additonal clutter. And technology applied to inefficient systems? In the words of Mitch Ratliffe, “A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any invention in human history — with the possible exceptions of hand guns and tequila.”

Small is valuable: data backup for the micro-business

A few short years ago, data backup for the micro-business was tough. An external hard drive sat on my desk, as big as a pond turtle and about as swift, and pokily copied my data. That was all.

It should be this easy.

I could keep all my data at home when I took my computer out, but there were still  too many contingencies left uncovered.

For one thing, I knew that a fire in my office would wipe out computer and external drive alike.

Further, Jeannie Shea, owner of Bay to Bay Technical Solutions and my backup guru, warns that business owners need to be concerned about the failure of external drives. Jeannie says, “I’ve seen people get a check for the cost of the drive and a quick ‘sorry’ from the manufacturer when their external drives failed,” leaving them with no data backup. One common source of failure is a problem with the USB port. Jeannie recommends looking for a drive with both a USB and a Firewire port, which gives two sources of access to the data.

Then came remote encrypted offsite backup programs, such as Mozy and Carbonite. At first, they left Mac users like me out in the cold. But as of this writing, both have Mac versions as well as PC versions. Now for about $50 a year, Carbonite quietly runs in the background, backing up my important data while I work. For the micro-business, this is backup heaven.

I know some small businesses that consider the cost of these services so cheap and the price of downtime so dear that they use both of them. This is one case where a “belt and suspenders and another belt” make sense.

Next up: addressing the needs of businesses with more sophisticated requirements

Belt and Suspenders: what everyone needs to know about data backup

Sometimes we joke about the “belt and suspenders” solution – those situations where people look for not one but two powerful sources of security. When it comes to data backup, don’t be afraid of the “belt and suspenders” title. Businesses need two kinds of backup.

Tough jobs require a belt and suspenders. (Photo courtesy of bibliofind.com)

One will be on-site, the other off-site. The first protects against data loss due to technical failure and some theft, the second against catastrophic loss due to theft, fire or other disaster.

Jeannie Shea, owner of Bay to Bay Technical Solutions and our backup expert for this series, wants you to remember one  key point: If your computer is in your office and you backup to an external drive in the same office, you may be protected against data loss but not against theft, fire or other disaster.

Your on-site backup should be:

• Automatic (not dependent on human intervention most of the time)
• On-site (makes it convenient to restore your ability to work in case of computer failure)
• Daily, at a minimum
• Able to back up “open” files, that is, files that are in use

Your offsite backup should be:

• Remote, so that in case of fire or theft in your office, the backup is intact.
• Encrypted, so that your data travels over the internet in a secure fashion to a secure location, usually out of state.

With services such as Carbonite and Mozy, this is now affordable even for the solo entrepreneur.

So how to make this work for your business? Yesterday we talked about why this matters for your business, whether you have 100 employees or you’re all on your own. Next time we’ll turn our attention to the solo entrepreneur and the micro-business, then in a future post we’ll address the needs of the “larger small business”.

Got questions about backup? Leave a comment here.