Archive for the ‘Business Ownership’ Category

As with most of what I read these days, someone (Denise over at Aday VA actually) posted (tweeted) a link to this article “Social Media Privacy? Get Over It.”

It’s interesting and a conversation I’ve had over and over with colleagues and friends. How much is too much information? I’m pretty open, I don’t lock or require authorization to read anything I do on social media. I talk about my kids, my reading habits, links to free Kindle books, review restaurants, complain about a client or two, rave about more than a few clients, retweet articles, I’ve probably even dropped the F-word a time or two.

I figure that at this stage in my life and career, I am who I am. I have a few people I follow that are all business all the time. Those are the ones that I tend to ignore, to be honest. It’s not all that interesting to know that yes, you are looking for clients. Get in line, honey.

So, today, if someone is following me on Twitter or Facebook, they know that my kid is sick (and has made me sick), I’m reading Under The Dome by Stephen King, my other kid had clarinet lessons last night, I have a new client I’m having a hard time getting to let go, and I just celebrated my birthday and 17 years of marriage to my husband.

Do I think you can over-share? You betcha. I’m sure if you look hard enough you’ll find things I’ve said that were inappropriate and maybe not very politically correct. But that’s also kind of how I am in real life. I can throw appropriateness out the door and be very unPC. I’m okay with that. I don’t drunkenly post or post about my late night exploits, but it’s okay to commiserate with a colleague about how her kid won’t sleep or with a client who absolutely loved the most recent movie they watched. I’m not going to hide who I am.

I mentioned above that all business is kinda boring. But I also think that your followers/friends/whatever should know what you do. Every now and then, I think it’s important to remind people “Oh yeah, hey, I’m a real estate agent” – or whatever – by saying you closed a sale or you did this or that. I follow people that forget to do that and I have absolutely no idea what they do unless I follow through to their profile information (which admittedly people don’t do all that often after the initial add). I aim to keep my stuff 80-90% personal. Seems high, but how interesting is bookkeeping – I mean really?

My point? I think it’s okay to be yourself and open about it. Others don’t, but I have yet to find a good defining reason as to why not. People cite crazies finding out where you live or where you are at. Well, frankly, that’s easy enough with public records or just dumb luck. There are so many things to be worried about – social media just isn’t one of them for me.

What is your thoughts on social media? Are we all too open? Too reserved? How do you handle your own privacy issues surrounding social media?

Don’t get me wrong, I love all of my clients, but this is my 12th year living here in Austin (yes, I realize I never get to be “from” here, always a transplant) and I’ve come to absolutely love this town, the people, the businesses… just everything.

Oh, I never would have believed I’d become one of those people until I actually lived here. There’s something about walking into a local business in Austin. It’s like nothing you can explain. San Francisco has it’s own vibe (I’ve been there and I think I’d totally live there if not here) – BUT – Austin definitely has it’s own drummer, folks This was driven home for me lately when I went to find a used clarinet for my son to start to learn to play on. We were referred to a little local shop, Play It Again Music, and the lady in there spent over an hour with us, showing my son what he needed to know. All for a little $200 used clarinet. If you’ve never been to a funky little Austin shop before, you must find one immediately *laughing*

So, when I see things like this video over at CNN, it makes me smile and it makes me pretty darn proud to be from this crazy little big city.  Many thanks to my long-time local client, Robert Grunnah over at Castle Hill Investments, for sending this link to me – check out their blog too.

For those of that live here, the fact that Austin is leading in this economic recovery is no big surprise. Oh, we felt it here, don’t get me wrong, but I think we didn’t feel it quite as bad as some other parts of the country.

Go, Austin, Go! And keep being weird… that’s why I stick around (even if I do tend to stick to my far far Northwest suburban area)

PS – I just saw an article from The Austin-American Statesman that Facebook is opening an Austin office. WooHoo!

Warning: Sarcasm ahead

I had 2 networking groups yesterday with two very different experiences. The first was “great” group that a client has asked me several times to go to. It was not too far from me (about 30 minutes I figured) and she endorsed how wonderful it was. Good enough for me – and she wouldn’t be there so I’d be her replacement. Great. Right?

Oy. It actually took me an hour to get there. I’ve been spoiled by working at home and traffic is horrendous going that direction from my house – then I hit this horrible fog and it just wasn’t a good trip. I picked up a friend on the way. We arrived about 10 minutes late and they had just started introductions. So far, seemed like a friendly enough group. All smiles, not put out by having to stop for a few minutes while we apologize for being late and introduced ourselves. Awesome, right?

The first guy introduced himself and the question on the floor was basically “what ties, if any, do you have to a veteran” since it was Vet’s Day on Wednesday. No problem, I thought – whew! I hate talking at these things and my husband was in the Navy, so score! I have something to say! (big sigh of relief). Right?

The 2nd guy… he goes on a small political rant about the ceremony at Fort Hood and how different politically-sided presidents were allowed to be greeted by the soldiers (apparently, there is are different rules for sitting Presidents than past). Whatever. Another person pointed it out to him and he kept going on. At that point, I didn’t care, they all needed to move on – I just really thought it wasn’t the venue for this discussion. Whatever it was, it was so beyond inappropriate, in my opinion. He was obviously very young and very conservative. I’m mid-age and very liberal. Whatever, I don’t care. Some of my best friends and team members are opposite of my views. It doesn’t matter and we don’t talk about it because it just doesn’t matter and no one is going to change their minds and well – it’s business.

The rest of the intros went fine. Again, that guy I really didn’t see as a representation of the group. He’s young and probably all hyped up about political stuff. He’ll figure it out as he gets older. At least I hope.

But then the presentation started. The presenter was there to talk about adoption. She runs an adoption agency. I thought it wasn’t really my bag or something I would expect to see at a business networking group, but I figured I would learn something new and well, that usually makes it worth it. But she lost me pretty quickly when she started out by telling us to keep our hearts open to god for these children. And then several times mentioned that they were looking for good “Christian homes” for these children and mentioned a few churches. Had it not been my first meeting I would have asked if Buddhist, Jewish and other religion homes were excluded. Had I really wanted to show what a smart ass I can be, I would have proclaimed myself Muslim and watched Christian Home lady and Obama Basher’s heads explode together. *laugh*

My point is this… is it me or was both of those probably not appropriate for a networking event? I can see the adoption thing, I mean, it’s her business and she was looking for ideas from the group. But do you feel that God and politics have a place in networking? (For the record, it was held at a cafe, not a church). Is it just me?

Bottom line for me is that while I don’t think it’s the group – I think we just hit it on a very odd day (surely that is not normal!) – I don’t think I’ll be going back. The hour drive to get there once per week really is just too much. It did, however, motivate me to find another networking group besides my usual monthly one. Just a little closer to home.

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Speaking of which, my next networking group of the day was my usual Austin Virtual Assistants one. (If you are a VA in Austin, you really should join us – we’ve been together for over FIVE YEARS now!). No, we aren’t always exactly politically correct and we make jokes and we give each other honest (and sometimes brutal – for instance, one lady’s logo – it totally looked like a bug – poor thing had to change it) feedback. But we have that kind of closeness and trust that I think is very important to me in networking. And, yes, we leave our bibles and bumper stickers at home.

.

She posted to the listserv at IVAA that she was kind of new and had someone contact her wanting bookkeeping services and needed a contract. I replied and said I would send her one off-list. When the email went out to her address, I looked up as it was going out and noticed her email address ended in “austin.rr.com” – which meant… out of all the people that are members of IVAA, she was LOCAL!

… and I had just quoted someone that sounded really familiar to who she was talking about so I quickly emailed her again saying I had used that contract for someone that same morning and his name was Elmo (I’m not making this up) so if it was the same person, she might want to alter it quite a bit.

I feel so lucky to know this person and be a partner with her at the meetings. We’ve worked together and celebrated both personal and business related triumphs as well as a few setbacks.

To my fellow VAs, If you have the opportunity to meet a Virtual Assistant in your area, DO IT. Meeting Lana truly changed not only my business, but parts of my life as well. She has become a great colleague, but an even better friend.

Here’s to 50 more years, Lana!

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

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2a8TRSgzZY]

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.

(this story is shared with permission)

I get some weird stuff in bookkeeping. I mean, like, really weird stuff… but today… well, today is my birthday and apparently one of my favorite clients gave me the most awesome gift ever. Laughter. I just can’t stop. And the more I think about it, the more I can’t stop laughing.

See, one of my clients is Linux Journal. A cool group of geeks that keep me on toes with some of the oddest stuff… I am a semi-geek, but mostly I’m a numbers geek that really likes my computer and gadets. So yeah, I fit right in, but sometimes… sometimes…

I get an IM from the publisher that basically said “I need to send Wil Wheaton an Atari. Can we send a paypal out for it?”.

Um. Okay. We can surely do that, of course… but no, I had to ask… I knew of Wil Wheaton, I mainly knew he played one of the kids in Stand By Me, but I knew he did something else super geeky… so of course I ask “Why are we sending the Stand By Me kid an Atari?”

Right about now, I’m thinking this conversation is getting really weird. I look up Wil on IMDB and realize he’s also a Star Trek actor. Makes a little more sense now, but still…

See, apparently Wil and Shawn Powers over at LJ are having an Atari-off at PenguinCon and Linux Journal is a sponsor.

Okay, so that makes sense, we are sending the Star Trek guy an Atari so he can play with the editor guy at a geek convention.

The best part? The receipt I got from them… it said, “Wil Wheaton’s Atari receipt. I have no idea where you’ll book this one. ”

Oy.

Candy won’t toot her own horn, so I guess it’s up to me to do it.

If you’re a VA you are probably familiar with VANA, the Virtual Assistant Networking Association Forum. If not, and you’re serious about this business, you probably should be.

Well, last Wednesday they named Candy their Entrepreneur of the Year for 2008. Yea, it’s a pretty big deal. I hear it came with some nice swag, too

Check out the official word here and see all the nice things people had to say about Candy.

Are you putting off switching to QuickBooks because you just don’t think you need it yet, and can’t justify the expense?

Well, you can stop stalling now. On Monday, December 22, 2008, Staples and Intuit are teaming up to help small business owners get a mostly free copy of QB 2009.

Mostly free because it involves discounts and rebates, and still paying sales tax, but still, it IS mostly free. The promotion is available in person or online at staples.com.

Check it out here and remember it is ONE DAY only, 12/22/08!

No, this is not a new article, but with the holiday season creeping up on us faster than we might like (or maybe that’s just me?), a few productivity tips can’t hurt, right?

Check out the LifeHacker article above, from motivational speaker John Womack. After all, getting back in the groove is hard, no matter what time of year…