Archive for the ‘Business Ownership’ Category

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…

We all know times are lean, the news and the government won’t let us forget. Which begs the question, how do you keep growing your business in tough times?

Erica Stritch at RainToday.com has some great ideas in her article, “Forgotten Leads: How to Find a Treasure Trove of Leads Hidden Within Your Firm.”

People need to see/hear your name between 7 and 11 times before they remember you. Even if you are busting your tail to make ends meet, make sure you take the time to keep in touch. You never know when your efforts will be rewarded, but if you never try, they never will.

I recently (okay, just now) got a new gadget – a Flip Ultra camcorder thing – SUPER cool. Of course, I immediately needed to find something to video. I hadn’t shown pictures of my office in a long time, so thought I’d do that. I even refrained from cleaning it up. Still not as messy as some people, but to me, seems like a disaster area.

At any rate… I give you… my office… and yes, I know I called it a Flip “camera” – I’m obviously losing brain cells.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzJ--YN-i8g]

Here are the pics from May 2006. Wow. I really need to rearrange some stuff I think. And I LOVE the kid’s artwork on my desk area, so that’s staying, but sometimes it’s a bit distracting. LOL.

… hmmm….

Residents and business owners in areas affected by Hurricane Gustav now have until January 5, 2009 to pay taxes due between September 1, 2008 & January 5, 2009. These include things like quarterly estimated taxes, extended tax returns, and more.

For full details, there’s a pretty good article at CNNMoney.com.

Oh, and yes, we are as flummoxed as the rest of the world by the Fannie/Freddie bailout. We’ll be posting on it later this week, we just want time do a little research.

If you work from home, whether for yourself or someone else, you know how quiet it can be. Deadly quiet. So quiet, at least when the kids are at school, that the sound of the air conditioner turning on sets your heart racing.

Once the adrenaline rush is gone, you decide you’ve GOT to get out for a little while. You pack up your computer and head to the local wireless hotspot, or a park if you’re working offline. It is undeniably noisier, but you’re still alone. No one knows you and many people will deliberately avoid you, afraid they might be interrupting.

So what do you do? Find a jelly! A jelly is a combination social event, networking and just plain work designed to help the self-employed or remote employee get a little human interaction every now and then.

For more info, check out this spiffy post on The Virtual Legal Assistant Blog. If you’re in Austin, and curious about co-working (another term for people working side by side who do not work together) and the new meeting venue for it here, check out Conjunctured’s web site.

As a virtual assistant I am particularly aware of how little affect geography can have on a business’ ability to survive and thrive. That said, where you base your business can impact how you conduct business.

If you’re thinking about opening a business, or thinking of moving one, check out KPMG’s 2008 Competitive Alternatives report.

For the short version, check out the accountingweb article about the report here.