Vacation Planning For A Small Biz Owner
This week something unusual is happening – I am going on vacation. Not a vacation where I do some work, as I’ve done in the past, but a real unplug-and-take-time-for-me vacation! Needless to say I’m quite excited, and ready to get away for a few days. However, as a small business owner with no employees, I have several things I have to work out before I leave. Otherwise, I will find myself making a few phone calls and checking email off and on just to make sure I haven’t missed anything. And that defeats the point of a break.
So here’s a list of what I’ve done to prepare. Anything I have missed? I’ll do a follow-up post when I’m back, but I’d love to have other suggestions before I go.
- I’ve taken care of things around my home – put a hold on my mail, found someone to feed my cat, eating out of my refrigerator and pantry to use up what I have. While this doesn’t specifically apply to preparing my business, it is good to know that these things are taken care of.
- I’ve also made sure all bills due, both personal and business, are paid before I leave. All client invoices will be sent out. Money received will either be in my Paypal account or held with my mail. Fortunately, my business bank account is in good shape, so I’m not desperate to get the money before I return.
- I notified my clients a couple of weeks ago of when I would be unavailable, and suggested they get any work to me before I left, or have it ready for me when I get back. Even though I work virtually, and have previously worked when I was out of town, this is meant to be a real break from my business. By letting them know ahead of time, they can plan their needs, and not wonder why I’m not returning calls and emails.
- Additionally, I’ve reminded clients I maintain social media accounts for that they will need to check in every day or so to make sure there aren’t comments they need to reply to. As my business grows and clients accounts require more maintenance, I will likely hire someone to take care of this when I am away, but for now I believe this will work.
- I’m setting up an autoresponder for my email and changing the message on my phone voice mail. This will let people know I’m not ignoring their messages, and when to expect to hear back from me.
- I always set up my tweets ahead of time, and I’m doing the same for my vacation time. I am wondering though, if anyone retweets me I won’t know it for several days, and would hate for them to think I’ve ignored them. I’m going to try it this time and see what happens… (and if anyone has had a similar experience, please share what worked for you.)
Each business is different and will have unique issues to consider when taking off on vacation. Anything you think I’ve missed doing business-wise? Anyone taken a vacation from their business? Please share your experiences both good and bad.
And I’ll see you when I get back!
How To Set Up Google Alerts
How do you keep up with what is being said about your name and your business on the internet? Of course you can manually do searches on those names, but there is a way to set it up automatically. Google Alerts are sent to you by email or feed, and on the schedule you request. Alerts can be changed, so if you are getting alerts too often – or not soon enough, you can change it.
What should you search for? For starters, you name and any variations you use, and your business name. Got an industry, or niche area you are in – or wanting to be in? Set up an Alert for that as well. I suggest starting small – with what you have to keep up with – and add more once you see how many you are getting everyday.
Setting up Google Alerts is easy. When you are logged in to Google, along the top left of the page are your various options – Gmail, Calendar, etc. Click on More, then at the bottom, click on Even More.
This pulls up a new page, and at the top on the left is Alerts. Click on that.
Up comes the page where you can create your Google Alerts. Put your search terms within quotation marks to help limit the number of results you get. Options for Type include News, Blogs, Web, Comprehensive, Video and Groups. How often options are as-it-happens (which I would recommend for your name and business name, to keep up with any mentions about them as quickly as possible), once a day, and once a week. The length of the email can be up to 20 results, or up to 50 results. Remember you can go in and change or delete the alerts anytime, so if you don’t like the frequency or are getting to many, you can change it. When finished, click Create Alert.
You are set! Check you inbox for the alerts and keep an eye on what is being said about you, your business, or any other topic of interest to you.
Anyone got other ideas on what to set alerts for?
Gratitudes
What are you grateful for? Have you recently stopped and given thanks for all the good people and things in your life?
This Thursday, the fourth Thursday in November, is Thanksgiving Day in the United States. While many celebrate it as a day to eat too much good food and watch too many American football games, it can also be a time to stop, reflect, and remember how much we really have.
My gratitude list is long, and grows longer every day. Here’s a few things I am grateful for:
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My son, at 14, still wants to talk to me (at least some of the time!)
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My cat, a constant source of love and entertainment
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My business! It began this year, and continues to grow
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My clients – who help make my business a success
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My FAB VAB (Fabulous Virtual Assistant Bookclub) group! We began as strangers in an online Get Clients Now reading group, and have grown to be a supportive group of friends that occasionally gets around to talking about the books we are reading!
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All the amazing people in my life – both in person and online
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I have more than enough!
When times are hard, and things are going badly, it is easy to forget all the good things you have in your life. A quick list of a few of them can change your perspective and brighten your day.
Have you made your list? What are you grateful for?
A Less Paper Life
Do you ever feel this way?
I often feel I am drowning in paper. From the unwanted fliers in the mail to the multiple announcements my son brings home from school, there is too much paper coming in. And for all the tips and suggestions on how to deal with it, I just want less of it to handle. So I’m attempting to limit the amount of paper I have to deal with, both personal and business. Here’s some steps I’ve discovered that have helped. (WARNING: I am not an attorney or an accountant. Please consult your attorney or accountant about your particular situation.)
To help limit the amount of paper that comes in:
1. Send your name and address to OpOutPrescreen.com and DMAchoice.org to get off credit card and direct marketing lists. Contact any catalogs you receive and have your name removed. The paper won’t stop overnight, but with time you should notice a difference.
2. Receive your bills electronically whenever possible, and use online bill pay. For business purposes, you may need to receive actual statements and checks, but using this option for personal bills will make a difference.
3. Don’t print anything you don’t have to. Does the email have to be printed? Do you really need to print off the one page letter to read it? Carefully consider before you click print. If you download an ebook, scan through it to make sure you think there is material in there you would gain from. If not, you can keep the digital copy in case your needs change.
4. Have documents sent as an email attachment, or faxed to an electronic fax number. Efax\ is probably the best known, but do an internet search to find other providers. The fax is sent as a PDF file to your email address, allowing you to review the document, save it to your computer, and only print out what is necessary.
5. Likewise, if you have a document you want to save the information from, but don’t need the actual item, you can scan it and saving the digital copy. Or, fax it to your electronic fax number, and save the PDF file you receive.
6. Check out a book from the library before purchasing it, or at least visit the library or bookstore and skim through it. Make sure you will really be able to use the book before making the purchase.
7. Can you eliminate magazine and newspaper subscriptions and read online? Or, could you share a subscription with a friend or business associate? You may find you need your own copy of some, but each one you can eliminate reduces the paper coming in.
8. My final tip is not about saving paper, but about protecting the digital copies you make. Back up your computer!! Have more than one back up copy of your important documents. I cannot stress this enough. You should be doing it anyway, but you want to make sure you have multiple digital copies of your documents, especially if you don’t have paper versions. And at least one backup should be off-site. When you least expect it, you will need it. Yes, I know this from experience.
Is it possible to be completely paperless? No, not today. And I’m not sure that should be the goal. Instead, get rid of what is not needed, and look for ways to reduce paper coming in.
What ways have you worked to reduce the paper in your life and business? What paper items have you found that you cannot let go of?
Re-Focusing
Last December, Christine Kane posted on her blog about choosing a word-of-the-year. The idea is you select one word to guide your intentions for the coming year.
I thought about a variety of words over the next couple of weeks, but the one word I kept coming back to was focus. As in “I need to get focused…” and “I really want to focus on being…”, etc. So, my word for 2009 became “focus”.
We go into the new year and I am filled with excitement about what I am going to focus on. And then….some changes in my personal life made me wonder if I shouldn’t change my word to “patience”, something I have little of on a good day. Instead, I decided to focus on patience while I needed to, then focus on other things.
I focused on where I was in life and where I wanted to be. I made a Vision Board with images and words I wanted in my life. I completely changed my plans for the future, started a business very unlike what I’d been talking about for the past 3-4 years (and which in its first 7 months has made more money than my other business ever did).
I’ve focused on my business. I’ve focused on getting clients, on making clients happy, or networking to get more clients. And I’ve focused on pursuing what makes me happy.
But along the way, I’ve felt overwhelmed and, well, unfocused. The last couple of months have been exhausting mentally. I sit down and make out a plan on ways to move my business forward, then never follow through. I say I don’t have time (and in many ways, that is true), but I also feel like I am trying to do so much, that there will NEVER be enough time for it all. Yet is all seems so important…
Several weeks ago, a good friend and client (who is also a small business owner) said that for the rest of the year she was putting aside some hobbies she enjoys to devote the extra time to her business to get it moving in the direction she wanted. That really made me think. My first reaction was “I don’t want to give up things that makes me happy”, but then I realized, maybe I need to temporarily put it put them aside to focus on other areas that will move me and my business forward. Later, I can add them back in if I find they still have meaning for my life.
And then this post by Jonathan Fields showed up in my Google Reader. Wow! Talk about making me think, and encouraging me to focus in on what is really important to me now and in the future. If I am going to play a bigger game, what is going to need to be set aside, even temporarily. What are my priorities? What am I going to focus on?
We are now into the last quarter of 2009; the perfect time to make plans to end it with a bang! I’m still sorting out how this will play out in my life and business, but I have made some decisions.
Business-wise, I am focusing (there’s that word again!) on areas that are my strengths, that I enjoy, and that are in high demand. There are new skills that I want to learn, but I am being very selective about which ones I pursue right now – and I’ll only do one at a time rather than having my focus scattered in too many directions.
I am also focusing on taking care of the clients I have now, and meeting more of my ideal clients. I’m not going to just throw my name out there. Instead I’m going to direct it toward people I want to work with. I’m not responding to every RFP I come across; instead, I will reply to those that seem to be a good fit with my skills and personality.
There are plenty of articles I want to read, podcasts I want to listen to, and web sites to check out. For the rest of 2009, however, I am seriously limiting how many of these I pursue. If it doesn’t offer something to my business – or to the business of one of my clients – then it will have to be put aside.
What about you? What are you going to focus on for the rest of 2009?
Don't Feed The Anger
The last couple of days have been a good example of things not going as planned.
For instance, I had planned to do a tutorial post on adding subscription options to your blog. That is still planned, but it won’t happen today. Instead, I’ve been dealing with a bunch of little things that keep coming up, and add up to one big draw on my time.
So, please accept my apology. However, I learned something (or rather I was reminded of it) while trying to deal with “stuff” and I thought it might be of benefit to others
On Wednesday, I was handed a project that needed to be completed by the end of the week. I knew that this was time sensitive, so I put it to the top of my to-do list. Spent most of Thursday morning working on it, and was able to fax it in by early afternoon.
I felt good that I had completed it ahead of time. I knew there might be some small revisions, but overall thought that project was done and I could turn my attention to other things.
I begin working on a press release for another client, and just as I complete that and get ready for another project, I get a phone call. The project needed revisions. Not surprising, but they were rather large revisions, and in my opinion, many of the were unnecessary. It just seemed like a waste of my valuable time.
So I tolded them I would not have the revisions ready that day, but when they could expect them. I was tempted to call a friend and complain. We do that for each other, listen when the other is working through issues, but decided this project had taken enough of my energy for the day. I then grabbed some other work, my laptop, and went to my patio to work. I sat outside, enjoyed the lovely evening, made good progress on the work, and put the project out of my mind.
It worked. I felt better, and in a better frame of mind to tackle the project when I had to, which hopefully will result in me producineg better work.
It is very tempting to give in to anger and frustration, and stay with it. I do it all too often. However, I find when I refuse to stay there, and instead move on to something else, even temporarily, it loses strength. The feeling may not go away, but it doesn’t control me anymore. Giving energy to your anger only feeds it and keeps it active in your life. Put your energy to something more constructive and watch how much you can benefit from it.
And now…back to putting my energy into the next blog post!
