More People Working Remotely.

Accountingweb.com has an interesting article on the rise of "telework". With the rise in gas prices and many other factors, the number of employees in the United States working remotely rose frome 12.4 million in 2006 to 17.2 million in 2008. While these aren't all full-time teleworkers, they do all work remotely at least 1 day per month.

For more information and a list of "Key Finding" point your browser to "Telework on the rise as more imployers offer flexible work arrangements."

Sharing the pie with the competition.

I have a theory about Americans. From the day we are born we are taught to compete:

We are taught to do more than our parents. We are pushed to be the best at sports, academics, or music (or all of the above). We are even taught to strive for more than our siblings.

So it should come as no surprise that in business, we can get nasty with the competition. But it does not have to be that way. Sure, competition is great and healthy. But sometimes, it can get out of hand. After all, if they businesses were both planned well then there should be plenty of room for both!

What I recommend is that you go say "Hello!" to the competition. Open a line of communication. I would give a list of the benefits to you and your business, but The Small Business Idea Generator already has come up with a great list! Check it out at:

5 Reasons to Network with Your Competitors.

Is what you are doing really networking?

"Friend me!"

"Bkkper02 would like to add you to their network."

"CrazySocialGrl101 was sent you a friend request."

Do these sound familiar? With the rise of online social networks, the term "Networking" has become nebulous. The time of building your business network through hardwork and lots of hand shaking is a thing of the past.... Or is it?

Susan Solovic wrote an article titled "Does Anyone Know What Networking Really Means Anymore?" for Duct Tape Marketing. In the article she addresses many of the common misconceptions about Networking. Her 3 Rules of Networking are an important read for anyone that wants to expand their business or even just their social network.

How to mess up a good thing.

For those of us in the Virtual Assistant industry, working remotely has become simply a fact of life. But how can other companies learn from our example? There are a few key areas where larger companies get the basics wrong:

1.) They are in too big of a hurry.
2.) They spend too much on technology.
3.) Managers are not trained properly or cannot adapt to the new environment.
4.) Does remote working even make sense for the business?
5.) No testing of the idea.

To look deeper into these failing, take a trip over to Accountingweb.com and read their news story: Five way to get remote working wrong.

Do you leave your computer on at night?

If you are like me, the first thing you do in the morning is sit down at the computer and check out the news, or your RSS feeds, or hit the Stumble Button a few times. Do you really want to wait 2 or 3 minutes while your computer starts up? If you are still with me, chances are you leave your computer running all night just so that it is ready to go for you in the morning.

Well, here is some food for thought:

Workers in the United States waste $2.8 billion every year by not turning off their PCs.

The good news is hibernate and sleep modes can drastically reduce power consumption while providing a good alternative to leaving the computer on.

You can read more about the effects of leaving your computer on overnight at ScientificAmerican.com

Vendor-Client Relationship In Real World Terms

Thanks to Nina Feldman for showing this to me. This is awesome. I should make all new prospects watch it ;)

My Dirty Little Secret....

My dirty little secret is that I am not actually perfect. I make mistakes, I screw up. More than once in the past six years, I have had to email or call a client and tell them the problem and present them with a solution (and that last part is important, if I have a solution or two at the ready, it shows I actually care). There have been a time or two that it really wasn't fixable, but I apologized and explained how the error occurred.

I am constantly amazed at how few businesses know the art of the apology. The thing is that businesses are run by humans and humans make mistakes. We all know this and we all accept it. My clients are always understanding when I own up to a mistake (and I am understand when they make a mistake as well). Stuff happens and life is just too short, ya know?

Many of you may know that Tom just got his degree from the University of Phoenix. He went there for 3 years and finished his last class in late April. He ended up with 3.67 GPA in Business Marketing. Not too shabby. We are very proud of him and have been eagerly awaiting actually receiving his degree....

Apparently, there's a problem. From what we can piece together, Wells Fargo - as part of the bail out - sold his student loan to the Department of Education. This means they basically stopped his loan, but didn't tell him or anyone else. This means that the school is looking at Tom wanting him to pay them, they are basically holding his degree for ransom.

The big problem, for me, is that his financial adviser missed it - and worse, has known for a month and not told us. It is her job, her responsibility. Instead, she avoided his calls, ignored his emails. I realize they are busy (she made that very clear on more than one occasion), but it's her job. They claim they called and spoke to him about it, but someone is playing the system and the school is too stupid to realize it. You don't go into that much explanation with someone for 21 seconds or a minute and 31 seconds. That's long enough to listen to a voice mail message, maybe leave a message (which we never got any of).

The money isn't all that much and we'll pay it next week now that we know there's basically nothing they can do, but ya know... no one ever apologize for their error. The financial adviser hasn't (we can't even get her on the phone) and her boss hasn't (she basically told Tom it wasn't her problem).

A simple, "I'm so sorry, this is our fault, but by law we really can't do anything for you, you will have to pay the difference, I wish there was more I could do." would have gone a very long way.

How hard would that be? It amazes me that companies are unwilling to just admit their fault. A simple apology would have gone very far. And it would have really saved this customer relationship.

You see, I want to go back to college and I was thinking of UoP, but not anymore. I also won't be recommending them to anyone else I know. Quite the opposite. And why? Because one financial adviser messed up and no one is willing to say "I'm sorry". Petty on my part? Maybe, but I give excellent service to my clients. I believe a little bit of customer service goes a long way. Whether it's writing off a few hours of my time, giving my client a credit on their bill... or just saying I'm sorry.

Staying Motivated During Start-up

I just read an interesting article over at Inc.com. We've all heard reasons why businesses fail: poor economy, too much competition, the secretary was faxing out bids on the shredder. You know, all those "read reasons" that businesses fail.

But Jessica Livingston at Y Combinator has a different take on the reason start-ups fail,"They all fail for the same reason. People just stop working on their business." While there may be different reasons for the lack of motivation that makes this happen, the eventual failure starts when the working stops.

Very interesting reading. Check it out:

How Hard Could It Be?: Start-up Static

Tips for Facebook

Are you new to online networking and thinking of getting started on Facebook? Already using Facebook but want to make sure you are "doing it right"? Sally Kuhlman over at Virtual Simplicity has posted some great tips on getting started on Facebook.

Sally covers some of the important basics: Should you really throw that sheep? When is it ok to ignore someone? Should my profile picture be of my dog or of my inbox? (Answer to that last is: neither!)

So go check it out, definitely good "morning coffee reading":

Facebook Facebook Facebook

Get rid of those overflowing shoe boxes!

Kelly over at Taxgirl.com recently answered a pretty common question:

"I want to ask if scans of receipts are acceptable as proof for the IRS. I’ve got receipts that are only one year old and they are already unable to be read due to fading. If we are somehow able to scan the receipt and save a digital copy of the information, do we still need the physical receipt?"

Does this sound like you? Do you have old shoe boxes overflowing with receipts "just in case" the IRS decides you need a good ole fashioned audit?

Head on over to taxgirl.com and take a look at the answer. You'll be happy you did.

Ask the taxgirl: Scanned Receipts