POV: Business parenting tips for entrepreneurs

by Susan Murphy
http://suzemuse.wordpress.com
http://www.geekgrls.com

Businesses are like babies. They are the culmination of experience, effort and love. They are created with much care and consideration.

The first 3 months of life, a business demands all of your time, pretty much 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You will be sleep deprived and stressed, but there isn’t anything else you’d rather be doing. After about 6 months, your business will start to become a bit more independent. It will still demand much of your time and energy. But you know that your effort is totally worth it. At 8 months, it will start to crawl around a bit on its own. With any luck, it will be growing rapidly, and you will be struggling to keep up with all of its changes. Once it gets to toddler age, it will be walking on its own two feet, speaking for itself occasionally, and finally sleeping through the night - most nights.

Owning your own business, in so many ways, is like being a parent. You must care for this thing you’ve created, nurture it, and give it wings to fly. I’ve learned more in the past 15 months of owning a business than I’ve learned in the entire 18 years I’ve been working, and I am honoured to have the opportunity to share with you here, some of what I’ve learned. 

Don’t be afraid to ask for help.
Painting, lifting, hauling, cooking, cleaning, assembling, proofreading, or just listening; friends, family and colleagues are always eager to pitch in. Online friends are equally as helpful – you have a whole network of people available to you here. Ask for help when you need it. And don’t forget to amply reward those that do help.

You have to spend money to make money.
The old adage is so true. Don’t be afraid to spend money on your business. It’s an investment in your future. Know your goals and make informed choices about when and where you spend. But don’t be a cheapskate. People will notice.

Shut down.
There is life beyond your business. Shut off the cell phone, close the laptop, and look around you. See those people? They are your family and friends. You need to remember them too.

Hire the right people.
You can’t do it all yourself. That’s why you hire people. But make sure that you hire the right people.  Don’t just look for someone with the right skill set. They must have share similar values and their work ethic must be compatible with yours. They must be trustworthy. And most of all, they must have a great attitude. How can you be sure? There are no guarantees, but definitely check references – that’s a great way to get a sense of how someone will fit with your business.

It’s your party.
As you journey through the world of self employment, you will encounter more than your share of nay-sayers. These people will question your every move, from how you spend your money to who you hire to what projects you choose to work on. You need to learn how to ignore these people, for they serve no purpose in your business. You do not have to defend your decisions to anyone but yourself and your business partner if you have one. The party poopers are not invited to your party.

Call your Mom.
Some days are just going to be downright crappy. The world will seem like it’s falling apart. You’ll want to run right back into the safety and security of the very cubicle that made you miserable all those years. When it happens, call someone who you count on for support. For me, that’s my Mom. It’s taken me 37 years to figure this out, but she almost always knows what to do to make things better.

Let your business evolve naturally.
There is no model for a perfect business. Be creative, roll with the punches, and allow your business to become what it needs to become. Don’t be afraid to make decisions. If they aren’t the right ones, you’ll know soon enough. Don’t be afraid to change your mind often. Every day, keep trying. Then try some more. As long as you keep your goals in sight, you will get there.

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POV: When I had no other options, I succeeded

BizzFlip has boiled down some wisdom from a series of entrepreneur interviews. One quote that caught my eye came from Christine:

I had tried to start businesses on the side for years, but because Ididn’t NEED them to succeed, they didn’t. When I quit my job and had noother options, I knew that I was either going to have to make it, orelse.

Read more "Interviews with Entrepreneurs" at BizzFlip.



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Putting people at ease

Liz Strauss says you're only a stranger once. She calls herself a 65th Crayon, a Saloon Keepers Daughter. She says her brothers Angelo and Pasquale pay people to like her. She calls people SOB, or BAD Bloggers, and they like it. She's a character, fun to be around.

And she's a sharp, smart business person. I said when we spent a week together at SXSW, that we would probably start four new businesses together. I find that we are frequently working along the same lines, though from our own direction.

If you want to learn how to blog, you owe yourself a visit to Liz's archives at Successful Blog. If you want to improve your business, work with Liz.


I'm proud to say that Liz is my friend. Happy Birthday, Liz.

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Creating a community

Lynn sold her business. She had to. Her husband? Lung cancer, early retirement, no more insurance. So she needed a real job with real benefits.

It's not that she didn't have a real job. She taught dance. For fifteen years she ran Lynn's Academie of Dance. But that's not enough of a real job to pay the bills for a family, for insurance.

So she sold the dance school.

On Saturday they had a recital. Forty-five girls, from 4 to 18.

It was probably like many dance recitals in many places.

But here's Lynn's legacy. Many dancers weren't built like dancers. Not like the ballet dancers you see in the Joffrey. Not like the hip hop dancers in the videos, not like the tap dancers in the shows.

They are pretty much built like the kids you see in the ordinary classrooms in the ordinary schools in the ordinary towns. Some of them live with Down's Syndrome. Some of them live with numbers on the BMI that are higher than recommended. In skin color, in distance from nose to toes, they varied. One of them even had white hair.

And all of these kids (and 5 adult students) flew. They spun, they tapped, they leapt, they laughed. Their pieces told stories. They leaned on each other. They lifted each other. Even for a non-dance observer, there was something happening that was, well, special.

And near the end, they did their own thing. They wrote their own tribute to Lynn, with their bodies, they wrote. Together the kids created. The older kids led the little ones on and off, carefully. And they danced with abandon, with passion. And they each went to her as the piece finished for one last touch.

Lynn hired teachers to teach from her heart. She allowed in kids who none of us would imagine could walk straight, let alone dance. And every single one of them flew straight from the stage to our hearts.

In fifteen years, Lynn Kuti created a community of young people that cared and created and did better than they dreamed. And in the meantime, they danced.

Small business people can do that, can create communities.

You can do that.

The work of their hands

They were giving us furniture. For our church. Beautiful furniture. The kind of furniture you find in hospitals or coffee stores or waiting areas in malls.

It wasn't because we are a church, really, but because five days out of seven they use part of our parking lot. And they have meetings in our building sometimes. And we don't charge. And so the management gave us some furniture.

It wasn't management, however, that brought the furniture across the parking lot. It was three of the people who made the furniture, three of the people who crafted the sofas and chairs.

They carried it in like they cared, like they were proud of what they had made. They looked around, as if they wanted to be sure this would be a good home.

They looked at the furniture already in the room, the furniture being replaced. And then they began to tell us that we could replace the covers on that as well. "Recovery," one of them said. "It can all be reused." It says that on the website, in the promotional material...but he really believed it. "1988," another one said, having turned the chair upside down. "That was some of the first of that kind." She was pleased that it had lasted well.

They laughed with us, helped us see what we could do with the old stuff, talked about how to treat the new stuff.

For these workers from Wieland, this wasn't a commodity, this was their life. They had poured themselves into this furniture. They cared about how it would be used, how it would add value to someone else's life.

They loved the work of their hands. It mattered.

I was humbled that day. And challenged. To care that much.

--------------------------

Jon Swanson is your customer, presenting every day perspectives in a new way. He was a regular contributor to the Great Big Small Business Show podcast, as the Entrepreneurial Chicken. Jon is the author of the best small business post ever.

Get on the telephone

I live and work in a town of just about 10,000 people. Fairfield, Iowa. Wonderful town. Quirky, interesting, small, remote, quiet (except for 35 trains that rumble through daily). County seat for a county with maybe 12-13,000. We’re 4 hours from Chicago, Kansas City and St. Louis. We’re 1 hour from any town of more than 25,000 people. The nearest airport is a commuter airport that’s at least 95 miles away.

Our town has survived the farming crisis in the early 80’s, a few recessions and economic downturns, manufacturing layoffs and even grown in property valuations and jobs during this because of A. diversity in our job base. B. some really smart business leaders here; C. some significant changes in the telecommunications industry, nationally and globally.

That’s right. Global changes in the telecom industry, most notably the ending of monopolies here in the US and overseas, has brought hundreds of jobs to little, remote, Fairfield, Iowa. (Caveat: it’s not the only reason Fairfield has survived and grown. But it’s the one I’m most familiar with and it’s the one that can be connected to the most changes in Fairfield.)

Up until the mid-1980’s ATT held a monopoly on local AND long-distance telephone services. The local part of our service was delivered with ‘bell operating companies’. And the long-distance part was handled by Ma Bell, ATT. It’s hard to imagine it these days with all the competition and options for making a long-distance phone call. But that’s the way it was until Judge Greene’s order to ATT to divest itself of its bell operating companies and then to open up its network to…competition, from the likes of Sprint and then MCI and also resellers.

Long story.

Lots of change and turbulence and new competitors with new services.

And that all meant opportunity. And a company here in Fairfield took that opportunity to resell ATT long-distance services. The thinking of the founder was he’d sell it out of …where?...yes, his bedroom/office. Quietly, he’d make enough to support his family. That’s all he wanted.

And as more of his friends and neighbors wanted to do the same with him, seeing the opportunity, he soon had a company of 6 people. He expected to make enough money to buy Australia, as he’d tell us; just the 6 of him. He was a dreamer and look what happened.

I was the 13th employee. Lucky 13. 7 years later there were 700 employees…in a town of 10,000. We had offices opening around the world. I opened our office in Germany. (What a story!) Our network operations center was here in Fairfield, for a worldwide telecommunications company.

(Interesting cultural clash. Our rural electric cooperative had a routine of regular maintenance on the weekends during off-peak hours. But for other parts of the world, and our customers who lived and worked there…these weren’t off-peak hours…)

We were pulling in employees from 2 other states as well as bringing in outside contractors to come work in a little town, far, far away from bright lights and big cities.

The company crashed and burned in bankruptcy discussed in the Wall Street Journal. (Hey, no one’s perfect.)

But all those people who eventually were laid off used their newly acquired skills to populate other companies in the area, either existing companies or startups. There spawned another surge in a new, more diversified, economy for the community.

And during this time, the internet became a force for business. This company was the first and only company at the time to allow for service orders to be entered and provisioned over the internet from the comfort of our independent sales agents’ home offices. (They expected to buy Fiji…)

That's a huge advantage for attracting sales agents, improving cash-flows from faster conversion of orders and cutting personnel costs from manually entering orders.

And changes again in the telecom arena helped another company start and thrive here. That company was Conference Calls Unlimited. From little Fairfield, remote Fairfield, we competed against national brands and their services using the changes in telecommunications and the opportunities they presented: long-distance calling, toll free calls, toll calls, email, collaboration with web conference services, VOIP, chat, hosted service applications like Basecamp and payment-processing through online merchant accounts. We used 3rd party answering services at the beginning and before that an online answering service that emailed the voicemail as an enclosure.

And then we used blogs and podcasts and YouTube videos to help spread our message. Oh, and websites, too! All made possible by changes in telecommunications.

And we hired great people. Our neighbors and friends and those we knew that delivered great service every day.

And there’s your advantage. It's our advantage, really, as businesses in rural, smaller, areas. As residents or rural communities we have the added advantage of working side-by-side with our neighbors and friends and maybe even family. That’s a huge factor for commitment, loyalty, dedication, passion. And we have all the advantages of access to a global marketplace through these changes in telecommunications without the high rents, high mortgages, high salaries and high overhead from being located in a larger city.

Not everyone is going to start a ‘telecom’ company. Even fewer will want to run a company of 700 employees 6 years after opening.

But the open infrastructure of telecom now with more and cheaper bandwidth becoming available, more calling services and options, more free hosted applications that allow any startup or small business from ANY location to reach millions in a professional and inexpensive manner is the great playing-field leveler for small business in general and in particular for small business in rural communities.

Get on the telephone. Your world's waiting for you.

About the Author: Zane Safrit’s passion is small business and the operations’ excellence required to deliver a product that creates word-of-mouth, customer referrals and instills pride in those whose passion created it. He blogs about health care issues each Monday at http://zanesafrit.typepad.com. There on the sidebar is a list of blogs and resources to educate yourself on the health care challenges you face, I face, we all face together. He also writes on small business, word of mouth, marketing, branding, innovation, and failure.

He previously served as CEO of Conference Calls Unlimited.

[Photo of Fairfield Art Walk by Zane Safrit, used by permission.]

Free upgrade

By Jon Swanson

I rented a car on Hotwire. They gave me Avis as the best price. We got to the airport and the counter person said, "would you like a free upgrade to a convertible?" I was still flying and so I hesitated. "The weather will be much nicer this weekend," she said. I agreed.

We walked out to the designated parking space and saw a silver Mustang convertible. "That's not ours, is it?" said Nancy. Her eyes lit up. It was.

I told my dad. He got excited for us.

We went for a drive with the top down the next morning while waiting for friends, listening to birds, smelling trees, looking at an unfamiliar New England town. We got back to our hotel as they showed up. "A convertible? No way!"

He and I drove on I 495 with the top down. After playing at the park, we took the 6 and 8 year old for a ride.

More friends showed up. "A convertible?"

A couple days later, the three guys, not always known for being macho, climbed in the car to get meat for grilling.

Late that evening, a three-year-old got up. She had been sick all afternoon and hadn't been around for the rides. It was dark, but the car was leaving in the morning. So we went for a ride, she and her dad in the back seat.

"The stars are following us," she said softly.

It was a free upgrade, something that cost Avis nothing, and they already had been the lowest price rental agency. But their free upgrade changed lives.

What do you have, what can you offer a customer, what small thoughtful gesture can you make that will delight a three-year-old in Maine...or your town?


Jon Swanson is your customer, presenting every day perspectives in a new way. He was a regular contributor to the Great Big Small Business Show podcast, as the Entrepreneurial Chicken. Jon is the author of the best small business post ever.

[Photo by Jon on Flickr. Used with permission.]

Four Small Town Game Changers

Social media tools can be a great field leveler for small town professionals. I explained why we bother spending time on social networking at Liz Strauss' Successful Blog, and then offered some practical ways to get started at Chris Brogan's blog. Now, let's do a little show and tell. Here are four people living in small towns and making great use of social media tools.

Ted Demopoulos

Ted Demop is the ultimate in effective internet presence from a small town. He lives in a rural area of Durham, New Hampshire, about 25 minutes drive from Maine, Massachusetts, and the ocean.

Go ahead. Google his name. But take a snack, because he is super-present online, from his books, his consulting, his speaking, and everything else. When he started blogging in 2004, he had concrete measurable results in less than 24 hours. His web site traffic quadrupled in less than a month because of his blogging. He was able to leverage it to sell speeches, training and consulting.

Ted says he would add that social media offers a huge benefit in learning from and networking with other similar small businesses in small towns that you'd never encounter otherwise.

"Amazing what a meat packer in central Saskatchewan can learn from an organic food store in Eastern Washington," Ted said, "and a practical joke/magic shop owner in upstate New York can learn from a car wash entrepreneur in Karamea New Zealand! (examples made up -- there are no car washes in Karamea!)"

Cody Heitschmidt

Cody Heitschmidt is based in Hutchinson, Kansas. Besides using blogging for his business, he's finding other important benefits to social media.

"I just like meeting people and seeing whats going on in there lives and broadening my mind through them," Cody said. "Not directly business related but valuable to my mental state."

He also uses Twitter to keep up with what is going on in the world, tech, business, and sports. Facebook is helping him to reconnect with friends from the past. To keep up with Twitter and Facebook and three email accounts, he coordinates through Digsby.

While the actual business or career networking is a smaller part, it has led to some business for him. But it's also enjoyable.

"Crap, it's just fun isn't it?" Cody said.

Britt Raybould

Britt Raybould is from a small town in Idaho. She works social media a little differently. Rather than trying to put herself out there with social media, she more often uses other people's social media to connect with them.

She finds potential partners and also friends. Living in a rural area means having a limited peer group locally, but Twitter helps her to maintain contacts with like-minded people in other places. She has also turned it into a way to learn new business skills, experimenting with WordPress, PHP, FTP, hosting, etc. Now she can offer those skills to her clients.

"I've had a few jobs come from Twitter and my blog, but in my case, I view it as a way to have conversations I wouldn't otherwise have," Britt said. "For all the business chatter about social media, I sometimes think we overlook that, at it's most basic, it's comparable to two neighbors chatting together over a fence."

Shawn Kirsch

Shawn Kirsch is going to change Elgin, North Dakota, forever. He's starting by using social media.

His online interaction from blogging and from Twitter have motivated him to take action in his town. He pitched a complete redesign to his local town's website, and now his local paper is wanting to establish a digital version of what they print every week. His church is also showing an interest in having a website. Now he's writing a column called "Everyman Tech" for the local paper. By writing about the Spurs on his blog, he got noticed by the administrator and picked up by www.projectspurs.com.

"I've had more unique ideas, that are both feasible and potentially life altering, than I ever would have had without Twitter, and I owe it all to the inspiration my Twitterbuds give me throughout the day," Shawn said on Twitter.

Shawn has lots more to say, in a guest post by him to complete this series of four articles.

You

What's your story? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

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To understand your customers look in the mirror

By Jon Swanson

You wonder about your customers, whey they don't come back, why they choose others. But look at how you function... as a customer.

Not for your business, but for your personal life (and I know, small business owners have no personal life. But just pretend with me for a moment).

When you need gas, how do you choose?
When someone ignores you at a store, how do you feel?
When you walk into a store, do you want help or do you want to find it yourself?

Now that you are thinking about how you are, remember that there are a billion people NOT like you. If you have tailored the shopping experience in your business to match your preferences, there may be some of those 1 billion people who will feel very uncomfortable and will not want to come back.

So as you think through the shopping experience in your business, think about people like you... and people who are the opposite.

Jon Swanson is your customer, presenting every day perspectives in a new way. He was a regular contributor to the Great Big Small Business Show podcast, as the Entrepreneurial Chicken. Jon is the author of the best small business post ever.

POV: A major decision point

All small businesses run into decision points. These are the things that can keep you up at night! Twitter friend Shama Hyder, of After the Launch, has come to one of these, and "tweeted":

After The Launch has hit a MAJOR decision point: To work IN the business or to work ON the business. Do we hire? Who do we hire?

Shama agreed to tackle some really tough questions about this critical moment for the Small Biz 100, to hopefully help other entrepreneurs face their own decision points.


What made you realize that you are at a decision point? One particular event, or more creeping realization?

I think it was when I realized we were getting more clients by the day. It gets to a point where you don’t know if you should focus on client work or new client acquisition. That’s how I realized we had to make some major decisions to make. We either grow or stagnate.

How do you balance working ON the business, while still managing to get the IN the business work done? Or, how do you carve out time for working ON the business?

In all honesty, this is what I am working on now. It’s hard. This is why I am considering hiring more help! I love working on the business and in the business, but I can’t do it all. That’s a huge realization.

Have you decided what position to hire? How did you decide?

I’d like to hire someone who is well versed in internet marketing and PR. Someone who can handle client accounts with ease. We have no problem getting new business, and being a marketing company, I am glad we can walk our talk. However, we need to continue to deliver great results to our clients-old and new. In that sense, I need someone who can pick up the ball and get in the game.

How are you fitting this with your long term goals?

I am still ironing this out….= )

What's the best piece of advice you can give to other entrepreneurs running into a similar decision point?

Just this morning an expert entrepreneur and mentor gave me this piece of advice: A small business’ life blood is cash flow. That should always be your top priority. Cash flow is what allows you to grow. We hurt ourselves initially by really undercharging. We signed up clients for long term agreements at foolish prices. This is a silly mistake, but I hope others can learn from it. We are now correcting this. = )

This article is part of the Small Biz 100, a series of 100 practical hands-on posts for small business people and solo entrepreneurs, whether in a small town, the big city, or in between. If you have questions you'd like us to address in this series, leave a comment or send us an email at becky@smallbizsurvival.com. This is a community project!

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POV: Grant Griffiths is a recovering attorney

Another great connection via Twitter! Grant D. Griffiths lives about 4 hours away from me, so that qualifies as practically neighbors around here. When he emailed me, I promptly asked him for a guest post sharing his story. Enjoy.

Clay Center
by bmcguirk

Needless to say, I was excited to come across Becky's blog, Small Biz Survival. And as she mentioned, we are practically neighbors. I first heard about Small Biz Survival on twitter and was immediately hooked.

Like Becky, I live and work in a small rural community. I, my wife and two of our children live in Clay Center, Kansas. Clay Center is a community of approximately 5000 people.

Since January 2005, I have been operating my family law practice from my home office which is located in a large room in our basement. I have utilized technology to its fullest and have no in house employees. In fact, I have taken advantage of my technology so my virtual assistant and I communicate via the Internet. We almost never see each other in person and exchange all of the work she does via email. I dictate on a digital voice recorder and email her the recorded files. She in turn transcribes what I have given her and she returns the finished documents to be via email.

I have marketed my family law practice for over three years now by using one marketing tool and that is a blog. The Kansas Family Law Blog has been my only marketing tool and what is great about using a blog to market, it has placed me on the same level or even above those firms who work in the "big city" and who use the Yellow Pages. By using Internet based marketing, no longer are those of us who live and work in the rural areas tied to just working and making our living there. Blogging enabled me to expand my practice to a state wide practice. I handled cases both in my own rural area and in the metro areas of Kansas City, Topeka and Wichita, Kansas.

Technology, whether sitting on your desk or that which is available on the Internet, has removed the barriers of living in a rural community. I am not new to blogging as I have been doing so now for over three years. One of my blogs that has actually brought me the most attention is Home Office Lawyer. Because of the traffic and readers I have been able to attract with Home Office Lawyer, I have given webinars to groups of individuals from all over the country. Once again using the web to connect with clients and prospective clients from all over the country.

Small Biz Survival is another example of the reach you can achieve using the Internet. And the reach someone from a rural community can accomplish. Like myself, Becky's readers are not all from her rural community. Becky, myself and others have a readership that extends from all over our home states, the United States and I would venture to guess, the world. It is important for those who read this blog and live and work in a small rural community to consider this in their own business. The worse thing someone from a rural community can do is to limit themselves to thinking they are tied only to their locale; and not marketing to the entire world. If you live and have your business in a rural community, and if you want to expand your market to either your state, your country or the entire world, you have to change your mindset and expand your thinking.

Last September we launched a blog called Home Office Warrior. Seeing that my readership on the Home Office Lawyer was expanding to include not only lawyers, but others who worked from a home office, we saw a need for a blog such as Home Office Warrior (HOW). HOW is what we call an "Internet Magazine for the Home Office Entrepreneur." And what is most amazing is we are getting readers and subscribers from all over the world. Once again, illustrating the power of the web in gaining a readership from all over the world.

In the next few weeks, I will be what I am calling a "recovering attorney." And having a mindset that does not lock me into only focusing on my rural community or even only my own state has enabled me to do this. Because I have a love for blogging and because I have spent the last three years educating people about blogging, I have opened my own blog design and consulting business, G2 Web Media. And I won't be tied to only Kansas. In fact we already have clients from all over the U.S.

So, even a country boy from the middle of Kansas can have a business that draws clients from all over the country.

Thanks Becky for allowing me to share a little bit about my own story.

POV: Britt Raybould: Building a biz outside your home town

At SXSW, Britt Raybould and I met, introduced by Chris Brogan (who else?). We had some excellent conversations about working in a high tech field, without being from a major metro area. We both got lots of surprised comments from the big city folks. Of course, I wanted to introduce her to you, too.

Before I answer your official questions, a little background might help put things in context. In 2006, I was working full-time for an in-house marketing group. Miserable, and convinced I wanted a PhD, I started applying and got rejected. One of my graduate professors recommended I join a mentoring program offered by my college that started in the fall of 2006. The program matched me up with an experienced communications consultant who met with me monthly and provided career advice. Through that program, I figured out I didn't want to do a PhD (yet), which was good because I got rejected yet again, but I also knew I didn't want to stay at my current job. So, knowing that I had a significant chunk of money saved, originally for school, I quit my job (my last day was today a year ago).

I started looking for another job, and even interviewed for several prospects. I wasn't particularly excited about any of them and they never reached the point of an offer. By this time, is was the end of April, and my mentor wanted to know if I had time to do some work for her. After that, she recommended me to a client she didn't have time for that needed some project management, and the rest as they say, is history. Now, I'll go into your official questions.

How did you find your first clients?
I found my first clients through two channels: 1) My mentor recommended me to two clients, both of which have evolved into a long-term clients with monthly retainers; 2) within my community, both of my parents are well known and they've mentioned what I do to acquaintances. These individuals often own small businesses, which in turn makes them curious about what I can do for them. Sometimes I make a connection. Once in awhile, I also get project work from people I used to work with in previous jobs.

You told me you have managed to tap into a network of business people for ongoing word of mouth. Have you done anything to encourage that (other that exceptional performance)?
As far as encouragement goes, the only thing I actively do is consistently deliver, as you say, exceptional service. For some unknown reason, my current clients seem to talk about what I have to offer with little prodding from me.

How do you track and manage your activity? Or how do you motivate yourself?
I track and manage activity in two ways: 1) I keep a time sheet next to me at all times, with space for a client name, project, and times; 2) as the sheet fills up, I enter the time into Quickbooks, which lets me create my invoices at the end of the month.

Motivation is trickier. For example, I'm not a morning person, so I absolutely loathe the times when I have to do conference calls or go to meetings before 10. To make it manageable, I make small deals with myself like I'll get to read for pleasure in the afternoon for a couple of hours if my mornings are packed.

Bigger picture, my main motivation comes from the fact I refuse to fail. I'm my own worse critic, and I have impossibly high standards. It drives me crazy if I know I'm not meeting my expectations, let alone a client's, so I keep pushing, reaching for that next level.

How about overcoming rural isolation? Any good tips?
For me, isolation isn't a big deal because it's what I usually prefer. However, I'm realistic. So, once a month, I plan a trip to Salt Lake (where I used to live) and schedule lunches, dinners, etc. with all my friends that still live there. I have clients in Salt Lake, so I usually schedule clients meetings, too, allowing me to expense many parts of the trip and enjoy myself at the same time.

I also make it a point to reach out and stay in touch with the people I've met at conferences. Realistically, 98% of the people around me have little knowledge of what I actually do, let alone how I do it. I'd go crazy if I couldn't connect with people who are into the same things I am, so I rely on Twitter, email, phone calls, etc.

Thanks for the chance to share.



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Two amazing women

Women Helping Women. That's the motto of the Business and Professional Women, which I belong to. In that spirit, here are two amazing women worthy of your attention this holiday season.

Small town entrepreneur Marti Lawrence shares wonderful humor with several innovative projects. Right now, she has three projects going. First, she's acting as a consultant in writing excellent eBay listings for her Grandma at Grandma's Timeless Treasures. Her amazing humor book Queen Klutz is online at Lulu. She also has hilarious items at Enter the Laughter on Cafe Press. That is also the name of her blog, Enter the Laughter.

If you need ebay listing help, contract writing of all kinds, or just a laugh, get in touch with my friend Marti.

Former small town girl, but still an entrepreneur is Glenda Watson Hyatt, The Left Thumb Blogger. She is in the final stretch for the "Blog for a Year" contest. It won't cover a year's salary...

BUT the existing fund would nearly pay for the EZ Keys with Voice software, which would enable me to interact more effectively when in face-to-face groups, as I blogged about yesterday http://www.doitmyselfblog.com/2007/the-cost-of-transitioning-from-silent-to-verbal/.

Vote at http://blogforayear.com/profiles/glenda-watson-hyatt.
She is also author of I'll Do It Myself, a wonderful inspiring e-book. Catch up with her and order the e-book at www.doitmyselfblog.com.

Marti and Glenda are true small biz survivors. I salute you both!

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POV: Triporia

Guest Post
by Steve Schaffer
Co-Founder and Marketing Manager
Triporia.com

Triporia.com is a video sharing website that connects travelers, through video, to all travel related businesses. The site was started with the spirit that small businesses are some of the best places to eat, sleep and visit. It's hard to find a place you hear through word of mouth and Triporia.com was designed to accommodate this. Small business owners now have the ability to compete for the traveler's dollar on the same level as these larger organizations.

Triporia.com allows a business to upload a video of their establishment at no cost. Prospective travelers to their city can view these videos to research restaurants, hotels, bed and breakfasts, resorts, golf courses and other attractions that they would like to visit during their stay.

The company was started by myself, Steve Schaffer, my Brother in Law, Cameron Brown, and my stepson Chris Scott. It was an idea that came to me on a trip to Grand Forks North Dakota which is a 2 1/2 hour drive from where I live in Winnipeg. My wife and I travel a lot. Whether we go just a hundred miles to all the way across the continent, we just love to travel. When we travel, we like to research destinations before we go to try and sort out what we think we would enjoy doing or where we would like to stay and what does not look attractive to us. We found that there was no one website that could help us with this task. We were constantly going from one website to another, and then still most of the sites did not give you a very accurate idea of what the place was really about. My stepson and I decided to try and put a site together that would help people research these destinations on one website. My brother in law came in, as he is a part time web programmer, and his job was to put our idea on line.

We also found that the more interesting places to eat, stay and attend were the businesses that had a local flavor to them. They were the family run restaurants, bed and breakfasts, attractions that unless you heard about them by word of mouth you would have no other way of finding them. Our thought was that Triporia would be a free site so that these businesses would have the opportunity to promote themselves to potential travelers to their destination as would large corporations that have mega budgets. I have e-mailed and corresponded with a lot of these small business owners, and I have been encouraging them to make their videos and promote themselves. We have received excellent feedback and we are sure to see more of these type of videos soon.

Below are three ways this site helps small business:

1. The site is free to anyone who wants to upload their video and promote their website as long as it has some relevance to tourism. Because there is no cost for advertising, this makes it easy for even a small businesses' advertising budget.

   
   

2. The videos are not segregated based on who has the best video or the most advertising dollars. Everyone is on an even playing field. If you type in “restaurants in Akron Ohio”, all videos of restaurants in Akron will be shown. The little family Italian restaurant home video will be just as easily accessed as the big multi-chain restaurant. Triporia levels the playing field for all businesses.

3. The videos to the site can be professionally made or they can be made on a home video camera. Home made videos are an inexpensive way to promote your business. You can show people how your business looks and what to expect when they arrive. This will also show other people enjoying your business, amenities and the things that make your business special. Since you are the director, you can be creative and show your business off to the world.

Some ideas for making your own promotional video include:

1. Take a video of your establishment, how it looks, your amenities offered, video of signature dish, special hotel rooms and other featured attractions.

2. Include video of people enjoying themselves at your establishment.

3. Try to capture the ambiance of your establishment.

4. Include a view of the inside as well as the outside and video the friendly staff, and Management.

5. Obtain testimonials from satisfied customers.

6. Remember to show your address and contract numbers.

Have fun with video and show the world why they should visit your business.

To view a couple of sample homemade promotional videos posted on our site click on the following links:

Rongo's Backpackers and Gallery

Castle Durocher in Montreal

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Starting a business is like throwing a party

It's like you want to throw a big costume party.

You call a few friends, "hey, I'm going to throw a costume party." "Great idea!"
We make supportive noises, offer a few ideas, and say we'll be glad to help. Because we are, we will be, glad to help.

Then you work out a bit more on your own, and you send out the invitations, and you prepare like mad.

And you wait. Nervously. For guests you *hope* will arrive. "What if no one comes to my party?"

We all get that feeling. "What if they don't drink on Halloween this year?" "What if no one turns up for the services?" "What if PodCamp is a big flop?" You know, it is absolutely universal.

The waiting is the killer.

But when you actually get started, a few friends turn up early, and you get busy with them, and then suddenly, there is a party happening.

You have a network. You've positioned yourself and done all that self-selling already.
You are like a well known hostess. (you're giggling now, aren't you?)
If you announce your party, people will show up. Really.

The waiting is much worse than the reality.

"But imagine throwing a party and then charging at the door. FREE is easy. Getting people to pay is ridiculous. Isn't it?"

What on earth makes you think that it is that much harder to get people to pay?? It's not!

It's just a business. Really, just like any business on the face of the earth. If it's valuable to you, you'll pay for it.

If you put on the invitation that there's a cover charge, people will get it. They only get upset when you SURPRISE them by charging at the door.

[Thanks to Jon Swanson for encouraging me to post this.]

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POV: 3 launch lessons learned

By Owen Mead-Robins, Oprius Software

Becky asked me if I would write an article about Oprius’ recent launch. I decided to concentrate on 3 of the biggest aspects of the launch.

Probably the biggest lesson learned revolved around a decision about our booth. We are serving the Network Marketing industry, and typically vendors are pretty low key. A folding table will be setup with a drop cloth, pamphlets on top, and a few samples for people to take; something you would find at a bake sale. So do we follow the crowd or risk looking a bit ostentatious? We decided to go for it and spent the money to get a proper trade show both made up with custom graphics, lights, and a podium showing off our great software. The result was that we stood far above the other vendors and had the biggest crowds of interested people. The three of us at the booth were smiling and really friendly, so all thoughts of being ostentatious quickly vanished. Going for the gusto on the booth was one of the best decisions we could have made.

The software was functionally complete (meaning it did everything we promised) a couple weeks before the launch. In those two weeks a huge amount of time was put into little graphic, usability, and other tweaks. Honestly it was a bit overwhelming. Everyone here wanted a really polished piece of work. I personally was working 14+ hour days through it, and for the last 32 hours didn’t even sleep to get everything done. Perhaps we didn’t plan well enough, or did something else wrong. Perhaps we did everything we could have and this is a heads up to someone launching a new product. Having an exceptionally supportive girlfriend was a huge blessing through that time. In reading Founders At Work (which I would very much recommend) it seems to be the norm. So if you are thinking about launching a product soon, be prepared for the crunch time.

Oprius is located in Victoria BC, Canada and the conference was in Newport CA, USA. We decide instead of flying that we would drive the 2,000km on a road trip. So we packed everything up and headed out. We saved a bunch of money on airfare and had a great trip. Driving hard we made up time to spend at the beach and explore LA a little bit. I am a firm believer that you need to enjoy your work, and this was a great way to act on that belief, and bond with some of the people I work with. Again, we didn’t do the typical approach and it paid off in a big way.

There was a lot more leading up to, and at the launch, but in keeping this article under a page I will leave it there. Thank you Becky for your encouraging words through all of this!

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Failure is not the end of the world

Understand that failure is not the end of the world.

Once you enter the world of entrepreneurs, you'll have earned the respect and support of a whole new group of people. Failure is part of this world. Many successful business owners have failed many times. It's really not a big deal. You'll get far more respect from people for having the guts to follow your dream in the first place. That opens doors all over the place.

One of seven terrific lessons written by Tim Siedell in If We Can Do It, So Can You at Tim's Bad Banana Blog.

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Instant Marketing Plan

Our Friend Chis Penn has shared his instant marketing plan to create online buzz for the Second Life Relay for Life.

Chris walks through the steps he took to jump start awareness and donations, from getting it online, to choosing a useful URL, to rethinking existing marketing materials. It all adds up to an campaign built within one day.

Here's the secret behind making an instant marketing plan: you have to practice. You must build your skills, your networks, and know your tools. You have to be prepared in order to be an overnight success.

[Photo of Chris by CC Chapman]

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WB's is coming back

If you lost everything in your business, would you rebuild? Could you rebuild?

Ruth Ann and Bob Wedel lost almost every single thing in their bulk foods business in Greensburg, Kansas, to the May tornado that flattened the town.

This was supposed to be their retirement business. They successfully built it up from just the two of them, to having six helpers. It looked like they would be able to sell it at a profit, as they approached retirement. Instead, they dug through the rubble of their business, salvaging only a few items.

How to survive immediately? They merged with a friend's catering business. Creating a successful partnership is hard. Doing it on the fly with no advance preparation is doubly so.

By our visit at the two month mark, the Wedels were serving lunches every day, from under tents in a parking lot. The next day, they were expecting to receive a carport to work under. Wow, what a luxury!

Ruth Ann explained some of the difficulties of locating a temporary trailer to work from, finding a site for it, and rebuilding their original building downtown.

Of course, the Wedels face big gaps between what FEMA, charities, and other groups provide. Money, spendable money is the largest problem. Assistance takes time, but bills must be paid today.

But Bob and Ruth Ann are plugging along. Serving lunches daily, catering weddings and celebrations in surrounding towns, and juggling all the rebuilding issues. WB's is coming back. One step at at time.

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Bowties and Corkers

Most regular readers know that Becky and I made a trip to Greensburg, Kansas this week. Now a pair of bright orange and yellow fishing bobbers sits on my desk as a reminder of Charlie. So I have to tell you about him.

Charles R “Charlie” Jones is a fisherman. Not just any fisherman, he is also what I’d term a naturalist, although he’d just say he likes birds and critters. He is also an entrepreneur; you know, one of those people who get an idea in their head and can’t give it up. Charlie wanted to make a fishing bobber that would keep fishing line form being tangled and lost in the pond. It all happened when he rescued a bird, but you can read that story on his web site at www.bowtieandcorker.com.

Charlie now has a patent on his invention and before May 4, he had a business in Greensburg and was making and packaging his product for sale. Then the tornado devastated Greensburg. In the aftermath he walked the ground where his building once stood and picked up what little of his bobbers he could find from the ground. I’m honored that he gave me two of them.

When I first started talking to Charlie I noticed his right index finger looked swollen and he told me that was his injury from the tornado and he’d had a pin in his finger. Charlie’s wife, Pat, thought she got off easy until her leg began to swell and surgery was necessary to remove a kernel of seed corn embedded in her leg.

As with any entrepreneur and all inventors, Charlie is a talker. As he explained how he’d come to this product, the passion for his work was evident. I left there feeling like I had to do something to help Charlie. After a few emails, a contact put me in touch with Wally Kearns, the State Director for the Small Business Development Centers in Kansas. Wally has had counselors available for Greensburg residents since the tornado hit and promised to pass Charlie’s contact information to a counselor there.

Rebuilding a whole town takes a long time. I hope Charlie and others like him can find a way to hang in there and be a part of the new Greensburg!