HOW TO WORK THROUGH A TOUGH WEEK

This week has been a tough one for me. I am in a holding pattern with most of my projects, waiting for things to be done on the client end. I drove all the way to Columbia on Tuesday to meet with a very motivated prospective client, who had been all over me for my help at our initial interaction. I drove 2 hours. In the rain. I got there and she said, "Who are you again?" Sigh.
To top it off, yesterday I found out some very disturbing news about a former friend, putting me in a state of "do I reach out or do I lay low?"
Oh, and I made Michael very mad at me yesterday morning. It was completely deserved.
While I could go on and on, it is always funny how the business and personal seem to intersect at the same time.
Here's what I've done to combat a blah week, both professionally and personally.
1. I finished my certified management consultant application. I have been dawdling with it for over a year, wondering whether or not to proceed. Full speed ahead!
2. I'm on track with my one BIG thing project and got some very good advice this week.
3. I had a bold ancillary business idea and have already taken steps to make it happen. Without questioning instincts or dragging my feet.
4. I finished the saga of Eleanor of Aquitaine and now feel suitably charged up to kick some rear end.
5. I crossed most of the things off my to do list for this week, with the remainder being easily do-able.
6. I got approved as a vendor on a major municipal listing service, primarily to provide strategic planning and feasibility study services.
As a small business owner, combating a frustrating week (or month, or year, or decade) requires more emotional stamina than can possibly be imagined. In my list above, I've done both personal and professional things to check my attitude and put myself back on track.
I queried the folks on Twitter and Facebook for input on this issue. Here are some of the responses I received:

Reese McFaddin, owner of Workplace Benefits: "When it gets crazy, I take Baxter (her dog) on a walk by the river for about 15 minutes. When I come back, I feel recharged."
www.benefitwork.com

Cheryl Smithem, owner of Strategic Marketing & Public Relations: "I remember that I love what I do. This too shall pass. The solution is already here inside me. Hard times teach me things. I ask for help." www.charlestonpr.com

Tonia Flores Speir, owner of the advertising agency CASE Solutions: "How can I NOT comment on this one! It starts with good friends to listen. Good business mentors that help you justify and focus. A mocha from Starbucks. My favorite Yankee candle burning on my desk. A deep breath. A cocktail. And the faith within that with every door closed is a new one opened."
www.casesolutions.com

What do you do as a small business owner to pull yourself out of the occasional (or frequent) blahs? However we receive your answers, we will update this post to reflect them with credit.

TIME TRACKING = A SUCCESSFUL FIRM DIET

A few days ago, I received a request for commentary on a topic via Twitter. Cheryl Smithem, a public relations professional in Summerville, SC, forwarded me a link: a creative services firm was extolling the virtues of throwing away time sheets and not tracking time to specific projects. Cheryl wanted my perspective.
An analogy is the best place to start with this complex issue. Some people never have to diet or watch what they eat. The rest of us privately seethe with envy and either make good eating choices or do not. I fall solidly in the "rest of us" category.
When I entered my thirties, I weighed 119 pounds. Really. Now that I'm staring at the big 4-0, I weigh around 140ish. Several years ago, I decided that I did not care for this trajectory and signed up for Weight Watchers points tracking online.
Revelations abounded. I never knew that having a piece of chocolate cake would mean that I would either be at the gym for 24 hours in a row or could not eat for 2 days thereafter. I relentlessly stalked my husband around the kitchen, measuring every little dose of butter and oil that he wanted to add to a dish. Never had I consumed so many crunchy, good-for-me vegetables. I reorganized the way I ate, made better choices, and started to see results almost immediately.
After a couple of months, I started to slip in my points tracking. Keeping up with all of this data was a complete pain. My husband was going to stab me with a carving knife if I asked him to cut the butter down one more time. I truly thought I would die if I had to eat edamame with no salt again. I stopped tracking points, thinking that I had learned enough about the process to monitor my food intake without it. What a relief!
Result: abject failure. I regained all the weight I'd lost within a month. Without knowing details, it was so easy to cheat on my food intake. I couldn't compute how much activity I needed to incorporate into a day, and I routinely (and very conveniently) "forgot" things I'd consumed. Tracking points was truly the best way for me to measure my success and to hold myself accountable for my eating choices.
The same is true of tracking time to a project or job. I say this despite working in public accounting for 11 years, where I had billable hour quotas that went up routinely. While I completely agree that the "billable hour mentality" is self defeating and ultimately does not focus on yielding value to a client, tracking time to a project is an absolute necessity and provides valuable information, whether or not the time is actually billed.
Tracking time to a project helps ensure that you as a professional are charging enough for your services. When I have forced my creative clients to track their time, they are always amazed to learn how much time they spent on a job compared to what they quoted for it. That data alone has given several of them the confidence to charge more for their services, because they could see how little they were truly making.
Without time records, it is impossible to assess whether or not fees are in line. Making decisions based upon the level of money in the bank or by following what others in the field are doing is not good enough. Evaluating historical records of both the time and cost components of each job provides critical information about whether or not certain services are worth continuing or if they could be revamped.
Time sheets give useful data for mentoring newer people. Instead of forcing people to bill a certain number of hours a week and then writing it all off, senior people should take time data from juniors and identify learning opportunities. If a junior person routinely spends 15 hours on a task that should only take 5, they obviously could benefit from some instruction. That coaching and correction contributes to a more collaborative environment, more focused and efficient workers, and more net profit on each project.
In the absence of time details, it is a challenge to determine proper allocation of labor resources. Some people have a knack for always looking busy, whether they are or not. During a crunch, time information can lend insight into who may really be available to help. Additionally, cumulative data about what a person has contributed to different jobs can provide a concrete reason to keep someone or let them go.
Regardless of the agreement made with the client up front, disagreements over work performed happen every day. When a dispute arises, time sheets are a contemporaneous record of what was done over the life of the job.
Time sheets add a dose of business reality. We never think we spend as much time on things as we actually do. Time spent is a key benchmark for determining when to wind up a creative process. It provides structure to a process that could never really be finished, as one can have ongoing light bulb moments in creative mode.
It is a mistake to make the focus of work all about billable time, but it can be equally disastrous to choose not to track it at all, no matter how good it feels. As with my weight loss analogy, tracking time does not shift the focus from the good outcome of value provided to the customer. Rather, I argue that it is a firm's point system, yielding concrete, measurable, dynamic tools for perpetual improvement in internal processes, communication and overall client service. Used correctly, your firm will be leaner, will be healthier, and could have a fatter bottom line. That’s fat we all want.

WORKING WELL IN A CHALLENGING ECONOMY

Anyone who knows me well will tell you....I am petrified of heights. Last summer, I went hiking in the mountains with my husband, and we chose a previously unexplored trail. It sloped downward pretty steeply toward some body of water we could clearly hear. When we reached what I thought was the bottom, it meandered along next to a tame creek for a bit until the trail evaporated on a tiny ledge jutting out over a roiling chasm. I had a panic attack and feared my imminent demise.
My husband had other plans, though. He wanted to hike to the bottom of the roiling chasm, basically along the side of a sheer drop that offered little for me to hold onto. Gamely, I inched my way along, looked down, and then gripped the side of the mountain with all my might and cried, "I can't move! You're going to have to leave me here!" (Yes, people, I was literally crying.)
Well, I eventually made it to the bottom thanks to much forbearance from my husband. It was worth every second of terror as the rocks opened up into a pool facing an exquisite waterfall. We spent the afternoon there, mainly because it took that long for me to amass the courage to climb back out.
Doing business can feel this way sometimes, particularly in today's uncertain environment. What worked well two years ago may not produce results today. Many small business owners are just waiting to hit bottom and hope they make it from there. In this issue, I've outlined a few things a small business owner can do to cushion themselves and even continue to grow.
Make smart decisions. The margin for error is not what it was two years ago. A bad decision can mean the end of business today, as the credit markets tighten and customers are harder to come by. Clearly evaluate what you want to accomplish, budget for how to get there, set benchmarks, and enlist help when you need it.
Get rid of all dead weight. In a robust economy, many small business owners put off cutting fat because it is hard. Today, we don't have that luxury. Most of the hard decisions are ones that have been postponed. Make a list of the nagging problems you've had over the past couple of years, along with concrete actions to deal with them.
Evaluate your business mission, objectives and product/service mix. Your offerings may require small tweaks or serious adjustments to weather this downturn. Listen to what your customers/clients are telling you by what they choose to purchase today. Make adjustments accordingly. You will likely find a better, more efficient way of doing business for the long-term.
Keep on promoting your business in a proactive manner. Jettison any advertising that does not produce results. Refocus those resources on things that have historically led to more revenues, keeping in mind the changes you made from earlier paragraphs.
Focus on the positive and celebrate small successes. Your competitors are likely still staring at the chasm and having their panic attack. Remember that any change, well navigated, can lead to strength and many rewards. We're here to help, every step of the way.

Twitter Status Updates to Facebook? We Say YES!

I must admit that I am relatively new to the whole Web 2.0 thing. I joined Facebook about 18 months ago and found about five souls I knew. As for Twitter, I've been an active user of it for 3 or 4 months, still very much an "early adopter."
My guru of all things Web 2.0 is Lyn Mettler (www.stepaheadwebstrategies.com). She advised me to actively use these tools and others for business purposes. Since I started a Facebook business page, linked my blog and began "tweeting," I can directly track several clients to Web 2.0. Additionally, I make connections that would likely not happen by any other means. Web 2.0 is a phenomenal ice breaker.
Having said that, populating my information on these services has been a constant struggle for me. Am I revealing too much about myself? Do I talk too much? Do people hate what I put out there? These and similar neurotic misgivings have, at times, made me feel like I'm in high school again. (I will be 40 this year.)
Several months ago, I linked my Twitter account to my Facebook status. Because I normally make between 2 and 15 status updates per day, I did not believe my chatter on Facebook would be excessive. When I was stranded in an airport over Christmas, I found out differently.
Basically, I vented to my Twitter account about my travel snafus. On Twitter, this was completely fine. People who use Twitter understand that using it is the point. On Facebook, I got several comments from people who didn't understand the Twitter thing and felt inundated with information from me. (Cycle back two paragraphs. Neurotic behavior ensued.) I disconnected my Twitter account and went back to dual status updating.
After a week, my Twitter account is reconnected to my Facebook status. First, I get more commentary on business questions from Facebook currently than I do from Twitter. Because that commentary becomes the basis of my blog posts, I need the additional input. Secondly, using Twitter for status updating is a time saver. I can send a status update over to Facebook without getting sucked into the cycle of looking at photos, reading other bios, and so forth. Lastly, the seamlessness helps me stay focused. I don't have time to do "stream of consciousness" commentary on Twitter and come up with interesting things to periodically post on Facebook.
Twitter is both a business and a social tool. Some people use it entirely for business; others use it exclusively for social purposes. I am not alone in mixing the two.
Others may disagree, but I view Facebook as a both a social and a business tool. I endeavor to put things up there that give a complete picture of who I am, what I like to do, and how I make my living. I can currently trace more clients to Facebook than I can to Twitter, and I believe it is partly because of the honest picture I try to provide.
People who believe they hear too much from someone on Facebook have several options:

1. They can choose not to read everything out there. I'm certain that no one is chained to a computer with a gun to the head, forced to read each and every status update. I tend to read and view things that interest me and filter out the rest.
2. They can avoid commenting or clicking on updates from an individual. Interacting with someone on Facebook seems to make the program send more information about that person into the news feed.
   
3. They can choose to hear from a friend on their news feed "rarely." Facebook allows each person to control how much they receive about each friend. Choosing "rarely" means less overall information about an individual goes into a news feed, something the "victim" never knows.
4. They can solicit more friends on Facebook. Less individual information will appear in the news feed as Facebook has more of a sample from which to pull.
5. They can "unfriend" an individual on Facebook at any time.
   

Within the next 12 to 18 months, I believe many folks on Facebook will adopt Twitter for status updating, causing greater understanding regarding more overall updates. Additionally, more Facebookers using Twitter will spread out the traffic from individuals on news feeds.
Because they're both such incredible tools, I plan to continue to use Twitter and Facebook together. Right or wrong, it is what works best for me.
Jared Smith posted a well reasoned counter to the above earlier today, and he makes some very good points about the natural evolution of the two services with which I heartily agree. Here's a link to his post: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/note.php?note_id=43655989899. He tweets a lot more than I do in a typical day, up to several times an hour. (Congrats to him. He picked up his diploma from College of Charleston today.)

POSITUS Officially Named Women & Minority Owned Business

POSITUS consulting llc was officially named a Women & Minority Owned Business by the South Carolina Governor's office. Applicants for WMBE status go through a rigorous vetting process, both in submitting a detailed application with supporting documentation and in undergoing an on site interview and tour of the business facility. Many of the standards are required by the Small Business Administration.
WMBE businesses can apply for federal, state, municipal and non-profit work. The certification helps women and minority owned businesses compete more effectively within those paradigms.

2009 - THE YEAR TO DO THAT ONE THING

In 1994, I stopped making New Year's Resolutions. I was a newly married 20-something and believed resolutions were just things people wished they could do, not things they actually did. I purchased a journal and devoted it exclusively to setting goals for the coming year.
Every year since, I have used that journal to set goals, grouping them together into what resulted in a long list of things I'd like to accomplish in the coming year. I set goals like "Be nicer to my husband." (I'm no longer married to that husband.) I also included the usual "Lose 5 pounds." (I've gained 20 since I started the journal in 1994.) Of course, I had some accomplishments along the way, BUT I decided to do something different this year.
I examined my professional life and determined ONE thing that I want to accomplish in 2009. Instead of making the usual list of things that make me feel like I've done my duty by thinking about them, I decided to make one big thing happen, REALLY happen.
To find your one BIG thing for 2009, ask yourself the following questions:
1. Have I wanted to accomplish this for a long time? In my case, I have wanted to do my big thing for 4 years. I have outlines on scraps of paper. I have a notebook and reams of information to get started. Failure to focus and fear of wasting time always kept me from just starting somewhere.
2. Will it make a difference in my career? My big thing will likely change the focus of my career, help me reach a broader clientele and provide some professional validation, all good reasons to just try. For you, the one big thing may better organize your approach to your business, cause sales growth or give you an additional credential. It could even mean a career change.
3. Will it productively impact my overall life? Whether my big thing is ultimately successful commercially or not, I will have done something that, for me, will be a big positive. Choose that big thing that will provide personal happiness as well as professional fulfillment. The two are not the same.
4. Is it risky? My big thing risks my time and energy, which may or may not mean a loss of actual money. If your big thing requires an investment of capital, examine it carefully and come up with small steps you can take while still preserving your resources. Chances are, you can make several meaningful steps toward your BIG thing without significant capital investments.
5. Enlist help. By telling all of you about my one BIG thing, I am creating a huge accountability chain. Find people who will cheer you on, provide positive feedback and offer constructive criticism. My husband and a couple of girlfriends do this for me. Allowing people to hold you accountable might provide the impetus you've always needed to accomplish your BIG thing.
6. Be detailed about how you are going to achieve your BIG thing. I broke my approach down into small steps that are doable without becoming overwhelming for me. By attacking a small bit every day, you will be well on your way to completion before you know it.
7. Let some other things go. Look at the things that have historically made a difference for you both professionally and personally. Do not keep investing in things that do not provide a return. By jettisoning some previous expectations and forming new habits, you'll free up some time to focus on your BIG thing.
Approach 2009 with ferocity, ingenuity and persistence. I hope you have your best year yet.

POSITUS Article Published by Resource Nation

Andra L. Watkins, CPA, principal of POSITUS consulting llc, contributed an article to ResourceNation.com. Highlighting collection strategies for any economy, Watkins gives tips to small business owners for ensuring the collection of monies owed them.
Click here to view the full article.