Browsing Small Business

The Mom Perspective Book Review: The 4-Hour Work Week

I’ve heard and read lots of commentary about Tim Ferriss’ book, The 4-Hour Work Week, and what I heard made me believe I really didn’t need to read it.

I really have no desire to work / live in another country or sail around the world or anything of that nature.

And, I sold information products for over a year and realized that I really didn’t like doing that, either. (Part of Ferriss’ plan for “freeing” yourself includes developing a product or products you can sell.)

My ambitions are more modest — I want more time with my son, and I want to take Fridays off.

My son has become a teenager and while you’ll find lots of debate about the pros and cons of being a stay-at-home mom when your children are younger, it’s always been my belief that kids need you more when they go out into the world and confront complex life choices.

I’m not sure what got me to read Ferriss’ book. Maybe it’s because the revised version with the bright orange cover jumped off the Borders bookshelf and into my hands.

I started reading it on a Saturday afternoon and couldn’t put it down. I read all the way through and realized hat Ferriss gives you a plan of action for developing the life you really want — whether it’s living in Bora Bora six months out of the year or finding a way to take Fridays off.

The key to living the life you want is to eliminate and delegate those tasks that keep you from achieving what you really want. For me, that meant finding ways to eliminate the day-to-day minutia of running a business and a household.

The other key to Ferriss’ plan rests on questioning the status quo — do you *really* need to work 40, 50, or 60 hours a week? Conventional wisdom holds that the harder you work, the more successful you’ll be.

“Work harder” usually translates into “work more hours.”

However, “work harder” can also be translated into, “Work harder to find ways to work smarter so that you work fewer hours.”

Since reading The 4-Hour Work Week, I’ve managed to eliminate much of the junk that fills my inbox, get Basecamp up and running in order to better manage projects, move almost all of my software applications to cloud-based applications so that I can access them from anywhere, train myself to “batch” tasks, and work with my virtual assistant to help me learn how to delegate tasks to her — so that I can free myself up to think about how to get better results for my clients.

The result? I’ve taken the last three Fridays off. In fact, I spent last Friday walking the Freedom Trail in Boston with my son. It was a gorgeous spring day — the kind where the sky fills your senses and the spring air blows thrilling little breezes that caress your skin.

We walked the city, looked at people and historic buildings, and ate candy while sitting at Faneuil Hall.

At the end of the day, despite all his grumbling and moaning about having to “walk all day” and “being bored,” he said, “Thanks, Mom. I had a great day.”

It was in that moment that I realized that I would always remember this day with him — but I would never remember the day if I had worked.

And that my friends is why you need to read The 4-Hour Work Week. What do you want to achieve and what’s been keeping you from achieving it?

How Malware Got Me to “Think Different”

In May my desktop machine that I use for work got hit with *nasty* malware. Up until this point, I had been completely virus free — mostly because I have always practiced ultra-safe (re: paranoid) practices: i.e. don’t download files from people you don’t know, use virus scanning software, have a great firewall, etc.

So I have no idea how malware breached my defenses. I only know that once it infected my machine, it caused pain. Lots of pain.

I spent hours reading techie boards trying to figure out how to dislodge it.

I spent more hours running programs designed to delete it — to no avail.

I paid over $500 to have a computer tech guy come to my office and remove it.

Nothing worked. The malware was so evil, it turned off Windows automatic updates, refused to allow anti-malware programs to open and run, took over my scanner, and then ultimately my Web browser. When that happened, I knew I was hosed.

That morning I unplugged my machine and lugged it to the local computer fix-it guy who did a complete “wipe and reload” — computer speak for reformatting my hard drive and then reloading the operating system.

Because of the havoc with my machine, I had limited access to files and information, including Outlook and ACT! — and began using Gmail as a stop-gap measure.

Once I got machine back and began reloading all of my software programs, the proverbial light went on . . . and I realized how much time and money I had been wasting all these years on bloated software programs that forced me to work their way, not my way.

Using Google’s Gmail, Tasks and Docs apps got me thinking about cloud computing . . . which got me thinking about how I really work . . . which got me thinking about cloud computing again . . . which led me to doing demos with products that I had never even considered.

Thinking about how I really work made me think about my business in new ways — which opened up a whole treasure trove of ideas and possibilities. I even bought an iPhone, something I had resisted. Buying the phone made me see marketing from a whole different perspective.

I began asking myself, “What do I really want to do?”

In their book, The Power of Focus, Canfield, Hansen and Hewitt talk about how our normal behavior is based on ingrained habit. For example, we may have one way of driving to the supermarket — and take that way every single time — without thinking about it. Driving the same route means we never see anything new on the way to the market.

It’s the same for our work habits. We get locked into doing a task the same way — and never change — which can blind us to new opportunities or ideas.

Looking back at the notes I kept during my “malware” period made me see that having an infected machine was the best thing that could have happened to me — although at the time I didn’t see it that way.

It forced me out of my rut, got me to try new things, and opened my eyes to new ideas and vistas — all of which I’m in the process of implementing.

I don’t recommend infecting your machine with malware to get you to “think different.” However, I do recommend you try different ways of working to see what pops up for you.

Look at what you’re resisting and instead of resisting it, embrace it. For example, I am a book lover and could never imagine reading a book on an electronic device (shudder). However, I recently downloaded the Amazon Kindle iPhone App and can’t believe what a pleasure it is to read books this way. I even fell asleep on the couch while reading it — something I believed could never happen. How cool is that?

What do you think? Do you agree or disagree? Do you have an experience that forced you to do something in a different way — and what did you learn from it?

From Liability to Asset: Make Your Website Work for You

Do you know your average sale per customer? This is your yearly revenue divided by your total number of customers. For discussion purposes, let’s say your average sale per customer is $7,500 (or $150,000 divided by 20 clients).

Your Website, if it’s an asset, should bring in at least this much in leads and/or sales each month. If it’s a liability, you’re losing this much — and more — in potential sales month after month.

If you doubt me, consider this: in the last 60 days, I quoted projects for six new clients and have closed on four of them — with a verbal pending for one of the projects.

Of these new clients, three found me via the Web (aka: search) and three came from referrals. More important, all of these new clients indicated that it was my Website that helped educate them regarding my expertise and how I would benefit them.

When I look at one-person consultant sites, however, I don’t see Websites that seek to educate potential customers. Instead, I see brochureware sites that don’t give potential clients any idea of why they should do business with the consultant.

In his best selling book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki (@theRealKiyosaki) defines what is an “asset” and what is a “liability.”

Simply put, an asset is something that brings in money: stocks, bonds, real estate investments. A liability is something that costs you money: your car, your principal residence, etc.

For many consultants, the Website isn’t the asset it should be — meaning, it brings in leads which turn into sales (income) — and instead is a liability as in, it loses the consultant sales.

Here, then, are my six strategies for turning your Website from a liability to an asset — one that brings in leads that become sales.

1. Optimize, optimize, optimize — If you remember one piece of advice from this article, make sure it’s this one. Potential customers cannot find your site when searching if it’s not optimized for search engines.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is something you can do yourself, but it does have a learning curve and it does take time. Consider hiring an independent SEO consultant who can help you with optimization — and who can recommend strategies for increasing traffic to your site.

2. Kill the “brochureware” excuse — Most consultant sites I see have five pages: Home, About Us, Services, Contact Us, and maybe a Resources page. And even worse, consultants will say, “My site is my brochure.”

And that is why these types of sites are b-o-r-i-n-g and do nothing to increase sales. Think about it, when was the last time you got excited by a brochure?

3. Explain what you do in plain English — One of the first questions I find myself asking when viewing independent consultant Websites is, “Ummmm . . . so what exactly do you do?”

To combat this, try this exercise: write down what you do in seven words or less.

When I first did this exercise, my “mission statement” was: “I help businesses achieve their marketing objectives through results-based marketing communications and copywriting.” Whew!

After some judicious editing, I’ve got it down to: “I help businesses achieve their objectives with results-based marketing.” Better — but I’m still working on expressing this even more succinctly.

4. Become a content creator — I’m sorry to say this, but if you want your site to bring in traffic and you want it to help sell your services, you have to create content — lots of it, including: reports, surveys, white papers, case studies, tools, articles, e-books, and information pages.

5. Learn to love marketing — For many of the consultants I talk to, marketing is a dirty word. According to Kiyosaki in Rich Dad, Poor Dad, however, those who have a thorough understanding of marketing and sales are those who realize their goals and achieve success — no matter what they do for a living.

To increase your marketing knowledge, read books, listen to tapes, and attend marketing functions. I must receive half a dozen invitations to professional meetings, Webinars and the like each month — and all are geared toward helping me become a better marketer. I attend what I can and constantly read newsletters, articles, blogs, magazines, and books.

6. Embrace social media — We’re living history even as I write. Our culture is undergoing profound change — and how we communicate has changed forever.

This means that if you’ve ignored social media because it’s a “fad” or a waste of time, you’re doing yourself, your business, and your Website a serious disservice. With social media you can easily drive traffic to your site, communicate your expertise, and set yourself up as a thought-leader with minimal effort and expense.

Do you have a success story about how you improved your Website so that it brings in leads and sales? Feel free to share it here.

Can a Clean Car Increase Sales?

If you have kids, you know how trashy your car can get. During the school year my car fills up with my son’s old homework, dead pens, art projects, and snack wrappers.

Over the winter the floor mats become crusted with sand (put down on ice-covered sidewalks and parking lots). Dog nose prints cover the back side windows and the windshield becomes “foggy,” reducing visibility.

When you’re busy and juggling work, kids, and volunteer duties, it’s easy to not see the mess. And truthfully, spending a weekend day “detailing” the car isn’t on the list of priorities.

However, after listening to Alan Weiss give suggestions in his teleclass for moving from “panic to profitability,” I decided to take his advice. Namely, I washed my car. (I did many of the other things he suggested, too, but you’ll have to listen to his teleconference yourself.)

Not only did I wash my car, I vacuumed it out — including the trunk and under the seats. I cleaned the foggy windows and sticky cup-holder, and threw away a ton of trash. I even bought new tires.

What a difference. Suddenly, my five-year old car, which had been looking a little ragged around the edges, sparkled again. I drove it around, enjoying the clean and crumb-free interior. What a nice ride!

A few days after I cleaned it out, I ended up driving one of my clients to lunch. Now how cool was it that I didn’t have to apologize for a messy interior?

The clean car lead to some other changes . . . I started dressing a little better for work. I took Alan’s advice and bought a nice pen to bring with me to client meetings. I traded my beat up 10-year old portfolio that holds my notepad and business cards for a high-end leather one.

And, instead of reading the gloom and doom newspaper at breakfast and lunch, I started reading books about positive mental attitude.

These changes, although small, improved my attitude. I felt *good.*

And here is the crux of the matter. Although sales didn’t magically increase over night, the phone did start to ring again. Each day something good happened until one day I was just as swamped as I had been before the financial meltdown / recession hit.

The reason for the turn-around is this: Your conscious affects your sub-conscious. If you drive around in a messy car or show up at a client’s with frayed cuffs or worn heels, these “little” things affect your attitude — without you realizing it.

Change these things . . . and you change your attitude. Change your attitude . . . and you change your outcomes.

So here’s my advice: go wash your car. Really spend some time on it — make it so clean that you can drive your best client around in it.

Once it’s clean, put on your best suit and take yourself out to lunch at a nice restaurant. While you’re there, read a book such as What It Takes to Be #1 by Vince Lombardi, Jr. or Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude by W. Clement Stone and Napoleon Hill.

Take notes on what you can do to improve your attitude — now, today, tomorrow.

You’ll come away feeling 100 percent better — and you’ll be open to all the opportunity that exists out there in the world.

Do you have a story for how you’ve weathered the recession? Be sure to post it in the comments below!

Simple Tips for Tracking How Customers Find You

I received a call one day from a prospect that began, “My Website isn’t working. I’m not getting any calls from it.”

After talking with him for a few minutes, I learned that he really didn’t know if his Website was working or not because he wasn’t keeping track of how prospective clients found him.

Keeping track of inquiries is important for two reasons: One, it lets you see if your various marketing tactics are working and two, it eliminates guesswork.
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Focus on Your Customers’ Business Objectives for Long-term Success

A few months ago, the owner of a small company called to see if I would give him a price for writing articles for trade publications.

“Why do you want articles for trade publications?” I asked. After talking with him for a few minutes, I learned that the company had always relied on word-of-mouth to generate leads, that they hadn’t done any advertising (ever), and that sales were down.

The owner, not knowing that much about marketing, just assumed that writing articles for trade publications would get him the exposure, and the leads, that he wanted.

We ended up having a couple more conversations and based on these, I was able to provide a quote for services.
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