More Than WE Know

  One of the reasons I enjoy working with Women Entrepreneurs is the passion they have for their businesses.  My biggest reward comes from helping people tap into their passion and realize that they can actually make their living doing what they love.

Passion is particularly important for service professionals, because it is what draws their clients to them.  Clients buy the energy and enthusiasm as much as the advice and information.

Robin Matuk, owner of My Digital Coach has passion for empowering women by teaching them to be technologically savvy.  Robin’s passion is so palpable that you can feel it jump off the screen during her interview.

Here is her story.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Do you ever feel like your life is a chaotic swirl of lists, demands, to-do’s and missed-do’s?

Does everyone from your children to your spouse to your friends to your customers look to you to make decisions, take actions, and give answers?

In short, do you ever feel like you are caught up in a perfect storm of crises, challenges and opportunities?

Many Women Entrepreneurs I work with struggle with all of the demands on their time, energy and talent.  Although WE love our lives for their multi-faceted color, excitement and flexibility - it can sometimes seem a bit overwhelming. While WE wouldn’t trade any of it, WE do sometimes wish for a chance to catch our breath.

The key I have found is to carry a vision inside of yourself as the “eye of the storm”.  All the chaos, clutter and confusion can be swirling around you, but you are in the center - the calm eye of the storm.

You are the leader of your business, your family and your life. Others look to you for direction. If you are calm, they will become calm. Likewise if you are upset, they will become even more upset.

Think of any world leader during a crisis. The one thing they do is present themselves as calm and in control.  They may be trembling inside but outwardly they don’t show it. 

The reason is that their followers all take their cues from them. If the leader is calm, fact-based and positive, then their followers can be too.  They relax. They think to themselves, “Someone is in charge. We will get through this.”

If you are a mother, you probably have experience with this. If one of your children gets hurt - you force yourself to remain calm and handle the situation. Instinctively you know that if you appear calm, your child will calm down as well. You rise to the challenge.

You don’t react to the crisis. You respond.

You are centered.

You are the eye of the storm.

Today, as challenges hit, take a moment before you simply react to the situation, so that you can choose to respond as a leader.

1) Take a deep breath.

2) Repeat to yourself words that resonate with you.

- “I am the leader in this situation.”

- “I am the eye of the storm.”

- “I am the calming influence.”

2) Picture yourself responding as a leader instead of reacting emotionally. 

3) If at all possible, stall for some time before you react. 

• Take a walk.
• Write your emotions in an email (that you don’t send).
• Schedule a discussion for later.

The point is to separate your emotions from the situation.  Give yourself a chance to distance yourself from the crisis. 

Don’t get caught up in the drama.

Lead and others will follow.

How do you handle the chaos and crises of your business and your life? What works for you? Are you the leader of your own life? Are you the calm center of the storm?

Is your email inbox a mess?

I learn a lot about a person from a glance at their email inbox or file management system. I recently worked with a client whose email inbox was, quite frankly, a mess. I define ‘mess’ by one or both of the following: too many unread messages and/or messages that are never deleted. If you fall into either of these categories, you are not alone.

However, failure to delete your emails or at least create and move them into folders puts you at risk of missing out on potential new business. Worse, if you allow your messages to pile up without reviewing them, a lack of response may signal to existing customers that you’ve forgotten about them. It is not uncommon to receive 100 or more emails in your inbox in the course of a day’s work. 

Here are two simple rules that can help you manage the high volume of emails.

RULE #1: Read the email once and file, flag, delete or reply.

RULE #2: Delete emails that do not contain important information

Are you bewildered about file management?
 
It’s equally important to keep the files on your computer organized and up-to-date. The goal of computer file management is to ensure that you can always find what you’re looking for, even years after its creation. What good is all your hard work if you can’t find where you stored your file?

These file management tips will help you keep your files accessible:

1. Organize by file types.

Make applications easier to find by creating a folder called Program Files on your drive and keeping all your applications there. For instance, the executables for Word, PowerPoint, QuickBooks, and WinZip should all reside in the Program Files folder.

2. One place for all.

Place all documents in the My Documents folder and nowhere else. Whether it’s a spreadsheet, a business letter or a PowerPoint presentation, make sure to save it there. This will make it easier to locate your files and to run backups.

3. Create folders in My Documents.

Having trouble naming your folders? Envision your folders as the drawers of your computer’s filing cabinet. Use plain language to name your folders. Otherwise, you may be looking at this list of folders in the future and wonder what “rtm” or some other invented abbreviation means. Create file and folder names that are meaningful to you. Keep business and personal folders separate.

4. Nest folders within folders.

Create other folders within these main folders as need arises. For instance, a folder called “Invoices” might contain folders called “2007”, and “2008”. A folder named for a client might include the folders “customerdata” and “correspondence”. The goal is to have every file in a folder rather than having a bunch of orphan files listed.

5. Follow the file naming conventions.

Do not use spaces in file names, keep file names under 27 characters, and use all lower case. So a file named for a client should be “susansmith” rather than “Susan Smith”. If you break any of these rules, be consistent about it.

6. Be specific.

Give files logical, specific names and include dates in file names if possible. The goal when naming files is to be able to tell what the file is about without having to open it and review. So if the document is a letter to a customer reminding him that payment is overdue, call it “overdue091207” rather than “letter”. This allows you to know to whom the letter was written without opening it. 

7. File as you go.

The best time to file a document is when you first create it. So get in the habit of using the “Save As” dialogue box to file and name your document. Put it in the right place in the first place.

8. Order your files for your convenience.

If there are folders or files that you use a lot, force them to the top of the file list by renaming them with a “1” or an “aa” at the beginning of the file name.

9. Clear out your files regularly.

Sometimes what’s old is obvious as in the example of the folder named “Invoices” above. If it’s not, keep your folders uncluttered by clearing out the old files. Do NOT delete business related files unless you are absolutely certain that you will never need the file again. Instead, in your main collection of folders in My Documents, create a folder called “old” or “inactive” and move old files into it as you come across them.

10. Back up your files regularly.

Whether you’re copying your files onto a flash drive, a disk, or an online storage site, it’s important to set up and follow a regular back up regimen.  Protect your files from loss due to viruses, hackers, and damage.

Save often but know where you’re saving. There is a place for everything and everything in its place.

This was a guest post by Robin Matuk, Digital Coach.  Robin founded My Digital Coach to help women reach their true potential by using technology to start a new venture, grow their business or expedite their personal dreams. She can be reached at My Digital Coach.

Did you know that over 1 million small businesses are already using blogs as low-cost marketing tools?

Do you ever wish that your business could have a blog too? 

But then do you think that your business just doesn’t fit with blogging??

If so, come on over to Business and Blogging. We’re so sure that we can think up a blogging strategy for any type of business that we are challenging you to stump us.

Tell us about your business or any business you have in mind - and we vow to come up with an idea for a blog for that business.

If we can’t, we’ll write up a profile of your business on our blog including a link to your site.

We’ve already come up with a great strategy for a gas station blog. 

If a gas station can benefit from a blog - then surely yours can too!!

So,  join the fun, and get some great low-cost ideas for marketing your business online!!

A little over  a week ago, I was offered an unexpected opportunity - to co-host a blog for B5media called Business and Blogging.  It’s an existing blog that’s been without an author for 4 months.   The blog focuses on the use of blogs in large and small businesses and is a good fit with my background, education and interest.

This offer was unexpected. I had actually contacted them about including MoreThanWEKnow in their media channel. But they had recently launched a blog on women in business and thought there would be too much overlap.  After some email exchanges, they ended up offering me this opportunity instead.

Many of us worry about how to handle unexpected crises in our business - illness, family problems, loss of customers.  Some of us even plan for business continuation during challenging times.

But how many of us remember to plan for unexpected opportunity-  a big order, an abundance of clients, a new market?

In my special report, 7 Steps to Sustainable Success, I point out that the best way to prepare for a crisis or an opportunity is to have a well-thought out plan.  A plan helps you to quickly assess the risks, options and trade-offs involved in handling a crisis or an opportunity.  It helps you handle either one with the least amount of disruption in achieving your goals.

In my case, I had recently mapped out a plan to write two e-books in the first half of the year, so that I could put together some training classes on the topics in the second half of the year.

In looking at the opportunity to co-host Business and Blogging, I knew I would have to put those e-book plans on hold.  I already work a full-time corporate job, provide coaching to women business clients, write this blog and attend school.  Adding another blog to the mix would be the most I could handle.

In deciding whether to take this position, I had to ask myself questions about what my ultimate goal was - the goal of my goal, if you will.

If my real goal was to write an e-book - then taking this job would be pointless. It would prevent me from making progress on that goal any time soon.

However if the real goal of writing the e-book, was to gain additional visibility for this blog and for my expertise as a small business development specialist - then writing the new blog could help to further that goal as well.

My goal’s goal, my true end-goal,  could still be met. 

What I had thought was my goal - the e-book,  was really just a step, a how-to, if you will.  By knowing what the goal of my goal was, I was able to see that accepting the offer to co-author Business and Blogging was the right opportunity to take.

So by now, you’ve guessed my decision - I did accept the position as co-host of Business and Blogging.  One of the topics we will be discussing indepth is the use of blogs as a low-cost, high-return marketing tool for small businesses. 

If you are not already blogging, you may want to  consider creating a blog to help gain visiblity for your business. And if you are already blogging, you may want to learn how to make it a more effective online marketing tool.

So, please stop by and see me sometime. Don’t forget to say hi!

 What’s the goal of your goal? Do you know? If not, how do you know you’ll get the result you want? If you do know, are there any other ways to achieve that end-goal?