Staying Sane: Being Productive, Even in the Slow Times

So you just submitted a big proposal to a prospective client who could really make a difference for your business. If this one comes through, it could make your year – or at least it could cover your payroll for the next few months. You are naturally patient, understanding that it will take time for your prospective client to consider your proposal and potentially review competitors’ proposals.

Rather than waste this “waiting time” with busy work, why not make the most of it? Avoid going stir crazy – by making your time as productive as possible, you’ll feel better and you’ll likely be moving your business forward by acquiring new leads or cultivating existing ones.

Tips for Tapping into Time

We’ve outlined some key tasks that will not only make you feel productive, they will actually produce results. From contacting prospects to getting your business organized, the following tips are all key investments in your business and future.

Schedule a minimum of two hours a day for phone calling

Make your phone calls in the morning while you are your referrals are both fresh and alert, treating this time as you would any important appointment. Your objective for your calls is to create interst, gather data and make an appointment. You’ll feel good when you can get those parts completed.

Call your best customers

When’s the last time you talked to them? They are your best business asset, so invest time into them. A simple phone call is always appreciated. See how they’re doing, what’s new and if there’s anything you can do for them (and don’t forget to record new information into a customer profile!)

Go to industry or association events

Usually, networking activities are the first thing to go when we get busy. Now that you have some space, get up and get out. Talking to people – whether colleagues or potential clients – is not only good business relationship management, but a welcome social outlet.

Work on your customer database

Now is the time to start recording all of the interactions, phone calls and lists that have been either stored in your mind or on disparate pieces of paper. Taking the time to organize in a database (Microsoft Excel or Access are completely sufficient) will pay off in the long run.

So, did you get the call back? If it’s a good answer, great! If not, don’t take rejection personally. It is to be anticipated and is a natural part of the selling process. Learn from it by using it as a valuable feedback tool and keep persevering!

Making Ideas “Stick”

Over the years, numerous business ideas, philosophies and approaches have flooded our world, particularly with the proliferation of the Internet. But what makes one idea catch on with the masses and others fall to the wayside?

“Made to Stick,” by brothers Chip and Dan Heath, is an attempt to explain this peculiar fact and many others like it. Why is it that some ideas “stick,” remaining vivid in memory and calling on people to act, whereas others just fade away? Is it in the nature of the ideas themselves, or does it have something to do with how they are “packaged”? And if the latter, are there lessons to be learned about packaging that will help people who are trying to influence public opinion and action?

The brothers – who are experts in organizational behavior — have written a book that lays out the six core ingredients and illustrates them with powerful examples. A useful mnemonic device, the components are organized by the acronym “SUCCES.” To stick, ideas should be Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotion-evoking and entrenched in Stories.

We’ve provided a brief overview of the book and these six basic principles:

Principle 1: Simplicity
How do we find the essential basis of our ideas? To narrow an idea down to its core, we must prioritize and narrow thoughts. Saying something short is not the goal. You need a one-sentence statement so insightful that a person could spend a lifetime learning to follow it.

Principle 2: Unexpectedness
How do we get our audience to pay attention to our ideas, and how do we maintain their interest when we need time to get the ideas across? We need to be counterintuitive. We can engage people’s curiosity over a long period of time by systematically “opening gaps” in their knowledge- and then filling those gaps.

Principle 3: Concreteness
How do we make our ideas clear? We must explain our ideas in terms of human actions, in terms of sensory information. This is where so much business communication goes awry. Mission statements, synergies, strategies, visions-they are often ambiguous to the point of being meaningless. Speaking concretely is the only way to ensure that our idea will mean the same thing to everyone in our audience.

Principle 4: Credibility
How do we make people believe our ideas? Sticky ideas have to carry their own credentials. We need ways to help people test our ideas for themselves-a “try before you buy” philosophy for the world of ideas. When we’re trying to build a case for something, most of us instinctively grasp for hard numbers. But really, the goal is to ask help people ask questions that inspire them to think how an idea might apply to them on a personal level.

Principle 5: Emotions
How do we get people to care about our ideas? We make them feel something. Statistics usually don’t elicit emotions. We are wired to feel things for people, not for abstractions. Sometimes the hard part is finding the right emotion to harness.

Principle 6: Stories
How do we get people to act on our ideas? We tell stories. Research shows that mentally rehearsing a situation helps us perform better when we encounter that situation in the physical environment. Similarly, hearing stories acts as a kind of mental flight simulator, preparing us to respond more quickly and effectively.

To read further, visit www.madetostick.com.

Project Management – Part 2: Communication

Project Communication: An Exercise in Managing Change

Everyone intuitively knows it: communication is the key to any successful project. In fact, constant, effective communication among all project stakeholders ranks high among the factors leading to the success of a project. It is a key prerequisite of getting the right things done in the right way. As knowledge is power, sharing knowledge is empowering every project stakeholder.

It is a best practice among effective project management philosophies build in check points to ensure a thorough understanding and to secure early buy-in from different stakeholder groups. The number of formal communication checkpoints should vary depending on the size of the project and on the number of stakeholders in your company.

A project communication plan is the written strategy for getting the right information to the right project stakeholders at the right time. Each stakeholder has different requirements for information as they participate in the project in different ways. For information to be used, it has to be delivered to its target users timely. As a project manager, while developing your communication plan, you need to decide how often to contact each stakeholder and with what information.

Your communication plan should include the following components:

1. The kickoff meeting. This establishes project timelines, required resources, agreed-upon outcomes for the project, reporting schedules and so on. The kick-off meeting serves two purposes. Firstly, it serves to introduce the project team and formalize the project management aspects of the overall project. Secondly, it provides an opportunity for the project team to receive a more detailed briefing from the client and to finalize user and stakeholder involvement.
2. A review meeting could be held at the end of any of the analysis, design, or implementation phases. Here, you discuss the outcomes of that phase and their bearing on how to proceed with the project. This meeting aims to create a shared understanding of the emphasis in the remaining phases of the project and allows the project team to reconsider any assumptions based on learnings so far.
3. A technical review meeting, if applicable, explains the design to the client’s technical team and gain any feedback about any implementation issues, before the design progresses too far. The goal would be to walk the client’s technical team through the high-level design concepts, showing them the paper designs and explaining both the rationale behind the different designs, and how we would expect each interaction to work.
4. Regularly scheduled milestone meetings. Make sure that these intervals are agreed upon by the client and that these meetings happen. Bring an agenda to each meeting to review every component of the project, wins, status and challenges. These elements should cover resources, costs and issues.
5. Final presentation. The presentation to client project stakeholders at the end is a crucial opportunity for your organization to understand the design so far, and the rationale it is based on.

Change Management: The Goal of Project Communication An often-mentioned buzzword in business circles, change management is really the core of project management communication. There are many “meanings” of change management, but for the purposes of this discussion, let’s keep it simple.

The first and most obvious definition of “change management” is that the term refers to the task of managing change. In the context of project management, change management is essentially the goal of the communication process and structure. The obvious is not necessarily unambiguous. Managing change is itself a term that has at least two meanings.

One meaning of “managing change” refers to the making of changes in a planned and managed or systematic fashion. The goal is to more effectively implement new methods and systems in an existing organization.

As we referred to in part 1 of this report, a very useful framework for thinking about the change process is problem solving. Interestingly, this is also how effective project management is approached. Managing change is seen as a matter of moving from one state to another, specifically, from the problem state to the solved state. Problem analysis is generally acknowledged as essential. Goals are set and achieved at various levels and in various areas or functions. Ends and means are discussed and related to one another. Careful planning is accompanied by efforts to obtain buy-in, support and commitment. The net effect is a transition from one state to another in a planned, orderly fashion.

The bottom line: change is a reality in any project situation. Therefore, project management inherently involves stimulating change within an organization. Some organizations are set up for this, others aren’t. In order to effectively affect change through your client project, make sure you understand that people resist change as natural parts of the process. By regularly communicating through various means and structures, you can ultimately overcome thosebarriers to ensure project success.

Check out these resources for more information on project and change management:

http://www.change-management.com/

http://www.strategy-business.com/resilience/rr00006

Finding the Elusive Balance

“We do not remember days, we remember moments.”-Cesare Pavese

Long, long ago, employees worked from 9-5, Monday through Friday. Sure, there were occasional exceptions, but most of the time, the boundaries between home and work lives were clear.

Those were the days.

The world certainly has changed, and in many ways has made our lives easier with technological advances making our lives more efficient. But at the same time, the boundaries between work and home are blurrier for many workers, especially if you own your own business and/or work from home. The challenge ahead for many of us is to strike that balance to create the meaningful moments in both our work and home lives that keep us going.

By strict definition, work-life balance is a person’s control over the conditions in their workplace. It is accomplished when an individual feels dually satisfied about their personal life and their paid occupation. It mutually benefits the individual, business and society when a person’s personal life is balanced with his or her own job. The work-life balance strategy offers a variety of means to reduce stress levels and increase job satisfaction in the employee while enhancing business benefits for the employer. In our increasingly hectic world, the work-life strategy seeks to find a balance between work and play.

It isn’t easy to juggle the demands of career and personal life. For most people, it’s an ongoing challenge to reduce stress and maintain harmony in key areas of their life. Here are some ideas to help you find the balance that’s best for you:

• Keep a log. Track everything you do for one week. Include work-related and non-work-related activities. Decide what’s necessary and satisfies you the most. Cut or delegate activities you don’t enjoy, don’t have time for or do only out of guilt. If you don’t have the authority to make certain decisions, talk to your supervisor.
• Manage your time. Organize household tasks efficiently. Doing one or two loads of laundry every day rather than saving it all for your day off, and running errands in batches rather than going back and forth several times are good places to begin. A weekly family calendar of important dates and a daily list of to-dos will help you avoid deadline panic.
• Rethink your cleaning standards. An unmade bed or sink of dirty dishes won’t impact the quality of your life. Do what needs to be done and let the rest go.
• Fight the guilt. Remember, having a family and a job is okay — for both men and women.
• Nurture yourself. Set aside time each day for an activity that you enjoy, such as walking, working out or listening to music. Unwind after a hectic workday by reading, practicing yoga or taking a bath or shower.
• Set aside one night each week for recreation. Discover activities you can do with your partner, family or friends, such as playing golf, fishing or canoeing. Making time for activities you enjoy will rejuvenate you.
• Get enough sleep. There’s nothing as stressful and potentially dangerous as working when you’re sleep-deprived. Not only is your productivity affected, but you can also make costly mistakes. You may then have to work even more hours to make up for these mistakes.
• Read up on it. Some good resources are “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff” by Richard Carlson and “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living” by Dale Carnegie.

Project Management for Small Business Owners – Part 1

From formal project management courses to new age disciplines, there are many theories of project management. Some are strict, some are more fluid, but all have the goal of getting a project done. Tools such as Microsoft Project have made the field and practice of project management all the more visible over the years.

No matter what tools you use, the critical point is finding a project management style that works for you, your employees (if you have any) and your business goals. In this report, we’ve outlined the basics and challenges of project management as well as introduced a few tried and true methods for you to explore.

Project management is the practice of managing resources – time, materials and people – in order to complete a project within a defined scope of quality, time and cost. By definition, a project is a one-time event to create a unique product or service – one that adds value. However, it is important to note that since projects are a one-time deal, projects actually contrast with processes or operations that are created to scale repeated events and tasks. As a field of study and practice, project management developed from different disciplines including construction, engineering, and defense. In the United States, the forefather of project management is Henry Gantt, called the father of planning and control techniques, who is famously known for his use of the “bar” chart as a project management tool, for being an associate of Frederick Winslow Taylor’s theories of scientific management and for his study of the work management of Navy ship building. With large corporations like DuPont quickly adopting such methods, in 1969, the Project Management Institute (PMI) was formed to serve the interest of the project management industry. The premise of PMI is that the tools and techniques of project management are common even among the widespread application of projects from the software industry to the construction industry. In 1981, the PMI Board of Directors authorized the development of what has become the A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), containing the standards and guidelines of practice that are widely used throughout the profession. The International Project Management Association (IPMA), founded in Europe in 1967, has undergone a similar development and instituted the IPMA Project Baseline. Both are now creating a global project management standard.[1]
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How long should you keep your tax records?

It’s an age-old question one never really knows the answer to: how long should you keep your tax records?

The length of time you should keep a document depends on the action, expense, or event the document records. Generally, you must keep your records that support an item of income or deductions on a tax return until the period of limitations for that return runs out. Tax records such as receipts, canceled checks, and other documents that prove to the IRS an item of income or a tax deduction appearing on your tax return should be kept until the statute of limitations runs out for that tax return.

Usually, this is three years from the date the tax return was due or tax return was filed with the IRS, or two years from the date the tax was paid to the IRS, whichever is later. The period of limitations is the period of time in which you can amend your tax return to claim a credit or refund, or that the IRS can assess additional tax or question your tax returns. Note: There is no statute of limitations when a tax return is false or fraudulent or when no tax return is filed with the IRS.

You should keep some tax records indefinitely, such as tax records relating to property, since you may need those tax records to prove to the IRS the amount of gain or loss if the property is sold. The below information summarizes the period of limitations that apply to income tax returns. Unless otherwise stated, the years refer to the period after the return was filed. Returns filed before the due date are treated as filed on the due date.

1. You owe additional tax and situations (2), (3), and (4), below, do not apply to you; keep records for 3 years.
2. You do not report income that you should report, and it is more than 25% of the gross income shown on your return; keep records for 6 years.
3. You file a fraudulent return; keep records indefinitely.
4. You do not file a return; keep records indefinitely.
5. You file a claim for credit or refund after you file your return; keep records for 3 years from the date you filed your original return or 2 years from the date you paid the tax, whichever is later.
6. You file a claim for a loss from worthless securities or bad debt deduction; keep records for 7 years.
7. Keep all employment tax records for at least 4 years after the date that the tax becomes due or is paid, whichever is later.
8. Keep records relating to property until the period of limitations expires for the year in which you dispose of the property. You must keep these records to figure any depreciation, amortization, or depletion deduction and to figure the gain or loss when you sell

When your records are no longer needed for tax purposes, do not get rid of them until you check to see if you have to keep them longer for other purposes. In this day and age where we are all trying to get rid of “clutter,” this is one of those areas that does not apply. Use your judgment – while e-filing is a fine place to keep records, you must have a reliable back up system. A wise practice would be to print everything out and keep it in a safe place.

For additional information, visit www.irs.gov.

photo credit: Robert S. Donovan

Monday Motivation – January 4, 2010

Make no little plans, they have no magic to stir men’s blood. Make big plans, aim high in home and work and let your watchword be order and you beacon beauty.
-David Burnham

In Chip & Dan Heath’s book, Made To Stick. One of the principles they share is the importance having compelling story.

How do we get people to act on our ideas? We tell stories. Research shows that mentally rehearsing a situation helps us perform better when we encounter that situation in the physical environment. Similarly, hearing stories acts as a kind of mental flight simulator, preparing us to respond more quickly and effectively.

This principle can be applied not only in your marketing efforts, but also in the day to day management of your business.

Toyota calls it their ‘Hoshin’ or ‘True North’. It’s using the power of story telling to get everyone on the same page.

It creates buy-in. It brings absolute clarity to the overall goal of an initiative. It deepens everyone’s understanding of the challenge ahead.

Even if you’re a one person shop, this can be a powerful tool. Chances are you still have to work with people and you still need to get them to act on your ideas.

Now if you’re thinking you need to sit down and pen J.K. Rowling-sized, 800 page tome — don’t worry. Brevity and simplicity are the keys here.

Think of John F. Kennedy’s declaration that we would “put a man on the moon and return him safely by the end of the decade.” That’s a compelling story that mobilized an entire nation.

Additional Resources to help you create your story:

• Getting the Right Things Done by Pascal Dennis

• Made to Stick by Chip Heath & Dan Heath

How To Hire & Manage Interns

Small businesses in Northeast Ohio  – and across America, for that matter – have long used college student interns and recent grads as a helpful, low-cost human resource. Student interns are capable, motivated and – if well managed – highly valuable to your business. A great number of high school, college, graduate and vocational school students are eager to take advantage of the real-world business opportunities offered to them by local businesses — during the entire academic year and not just during the summer months.

With the University of Akron, Walsh University,  Malone College, and Kent State (Stark)  just down the road, local businesses access to a huge pool of talent.

An increasing number of students today are capable of far more than just clerical work. Many can competently handle complex projects in such areas as finance, public relations, event planning and Web site design/development. And, many students choose internships at small companies instead of larger ones because of the hands-on experience they can get.

The trick is the “well-managed” part. Small businesses too often hire interns without a plan. Success with interns requires finding the right people and creating a system that cultivates interns’ capabilities.

Creating Your Intern Program

Interns can help you and your employees be more productive by freeing up their time – all while providing valuable learning experiences for the intern. Take an inventory of substantive work you need done. Ask other employees what tasks an intern could perform – especially those “back burner” things that nobody else has time to complete. There are many things that interns can help with – however, to make it a mutually beneficial experience, consider setting up some of these tasks: Interns can help you and your employees be more productive by freeing up their time – all while providing valuable learning experiences for the intern. Take an inventory of substantive work you need done. Ask other employees what tasks an intern could perform – especially those “back burner” things that nobody else has time to complete. There are many things that interns can help with – however, to make it a mutually beneficial experience, consider setting up some of these tasks:

• identify prospects
• pursue business leads
• write or send press releases
• plan events
• identify news media for publicity
• prepare award submissions
• do Web research on your industry or competitors
• refresh Web site content
• assist with presentations, design charts, graphs and posters
• recruit the next interns

Getting Started

To help get you started, we’ve compiled some key steps to launching and managing your intern program:

1. Attract candidates by posting internship positions online. Some internship sites let you post positions for free, others have small per/month charges for a listing. Employers can also post internship positions at Internships.com where a month-long listing is $10.
2. Contact the internship/career offices of local high schools, colleges, universities, vocational schools and graduate schools. Internship coordinators help match students’ abilities with employers’ needs.
3. Assign someone in your business (it may just be you) to have overall responsibility for your internship program, and be allotted the time and resources to properly manage it.
4. Determine if you have adequate workspace with access to computers and other tech tools.
5. Interns need a clear sense of guidance and structure, as they may be in a business for the first time. Schedules, work plans and deadlines will help.
6. Documentation is very important for effective learning to take place. It is strongly advisable that an employer and intern create mutually agreed upon learning objectives.

Using interns in your organization can result in many benefits. It is important to do some careful planning before creating your internship program. You can be sure to continue recruiting from your pool of internship candidates and foster positive public relations by implementing an effective, thorough internship program.

Get Creative! Making Team Meetings More Powerful with White boards…

I love a good brainstorming session.

Something about taking a group of smart people and throwing ideas on the wall. Be they good, bad, or otherwise — it’s a great way to get all the options & all the issues up in your face.

I recently toured some facilities with white board walls all around and realized that was something we wanted more of at our Akron Office Space Coworking facility.

So this weekend, we completed the first installation of white boards in our Conference Room ‘A’ — nice, big 4 x 8 dry erase boards ready for members to get together and go nuts.

Over the coming weeks we’ll complete installation of additional boards for all four of our conference / team rooms. In fact, the team rooms will feature entire walls covered with the dry erase boards. Each of which can be booked online by members for client meetings, off-site team meetings, training & education & product brainstorming sessions.

Ahhh but before you get started – here’s a great article with detailed guidelines for running a successful creative brainstorming session.

An outline of these guidelines includes:

• Suspend judgment
• Think freely
• Improve, modify, build on the ideas of others.
• Concentrate on generating a large stock of ideas

And the article goes on to explain the practical methodology for running the session — including making sure you have an official recorder, keeping the session relaxed & playful, & organizing the chaos.

Anyway – I encourage you to read the full article at Virtual Salt and to plan your next brainstorming session at Office Space Coworking in Akron or Cuyahoga Falls.

How I Wasted $6843 on Adwords

This is the tale of a hubris, addiction, and greed.

Ok. It’s really the story of how I let myself be a real dumbass.

In fairness to myself, I had budgeted $7,000 for marketing tests associated with this publication’s launch. This is common practice in the direct marketing field, in fact I’ve seen campaigns lose over $250k in a new product launch. Did that mean the company was not wildly profitable? Far from it.

In fact, without investing in tests of this nature, it’s difficult to get enough information to assess the viability of any product. Nothing ventured, nothing gained…right?

Still, I look at that line on my P&L and I wince.

What I Was Testing

I launched a Web site called Small Business Guru some time ago with the idea that it was going to be an online, paid subscription service.

I had planned to offer seminars, video tutorials, case studies, and a premium newsletter. I was going to follow the model of a service I greatly admire, MarketingProfs.

I was test marketing a concept and trying out new ideas so I went into it with the goal of learning about the market and tweaking the product offering enough to roll out a large direct marketing promotion.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hold the secret hope that this thing would take off like gangbusters.

Well, the truth is the whole concept was ill conceived. I misjudged the market for a paid service and the time it would take to build an audience. Marketing Profs, Duct Tape Marketing, Marketing Sherpa….they’d all been doing this for years in varying models. It took them time to build to a critical mass.

I was thinking — well, under a normal publishing model I’d get members at a certain acquisition cost and then convert them to paid subscriber fees.

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