Archive for the ‘bit off track’ Category

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Finding your business monster

Thursday, July 7th, 2011

Are there any monsters hiding under your business bed? Or perhaps yours is hiding behind your phone or in the pile of outstanding paperwork…

Laura Patrolino shares a story about the monster under her childhood bed that wasn’t really there when she looked. For a year, she followed behaviours that suited her fear rather than reality or her best interests.

The question is, do you have monsters under your business bed – that is, are there behaviours you follow in your business that are based on fear rather than a solid business decision? Or maybe behaviours based on misinformation, outdated ideas or factors that no longer apply (for instance, it may have made sense to work at night when you had a toddler under foot in a home based business but not now that your child is a teenager and you work full time business hours).

Have a look at what you do (and don’t do!) and think about the reasons and emotions behind them. You may find writing some procedureswill help you identify processes based on something other than efficiency and effectiveness.

So did you find many business monsters?

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Do you ask too much?

Monday, July 4th, 2011

“Never ask your customers to do something that you, yourself, wouldn’t do”  GuyKawasaki.

A useful quote to remember when working on your business communications. It may sound really obvious and simple, but I know I have often come across businesses where they do ask more than I am willing to give.

Here are a couple of examples of businesses asking too much of customers:

  1. ask for excessive information in an online form.
    I recently waws looking for some quotes and used some online tools to obtain them as part of my descision making. Most sites took the basic information and gave me a price – I knew it may move a little once I gave more details but it was enough for comparisons and to get me started. One site not only asked a lot more questions, they wouldn’t even finish giving me a price without my mobile number so they could SMS me a code to then compete the online form! I don’t want to give out my mobile number so I left their site, never to return.
    Lesson – check your forms and check you only ask for relevant information people accept you need for the stated purpsoe of the form
  2. make people search your site for information
    Two examples that come to mind here are the business expo site that effectively hid the expo dates and the Government site linking to their own homepage
    lesson – put key information in multiple, obvious places and use deep links to make things easy to find
  3. force people to use another medium to get answers
    Hard to believe, but I was once in a bank asking for help and was directed to call their customer service line (and they had a phone in the bank for this purpose!) Surely bank staff could help me directly – or have called on my behalf to ensure I got the right answers!
    lesson – if someone is dealing with you in one way, keep the interaction that way whenever possible. Certainly don’t send people off to a phone or email program when they are standing in front of you asking for help!

Do you have any examples of being asked too much? How did you respond to those businesses?

Next time you are reviewing your website, brochures and other communications materials, ask yourself if you are asking more of your clients than is reasonable.

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The cover or the writing?

Friday, July 1st, 2011

The mythical they always say to never judge a book by its cover and I think I found an example of it today.

I found a book in a bargain bin - I hadn’t planned buying a book today but I just can’t reists looking at a bargain bin of books… It caught my eye because it’s written by Pearl Buck and I remember her book,
The Good Earth, as excellent when I read it some years ago.

I picked it up, read the blurb and though ‘why not?’ and bought it.

As I put it on the counter to buy it, however, I noticed the front cover for the first time. I had to double check what book it was as the cover looked like a cheesy, trashy romance novel cover – and I choose not to read such books as there are so many books I would enjoy in my limited reading time.

If I had seen the cover first, I would not have even read the blurb to be honest, or noticed the author. So it goes to show that the cover is important for getting noticed and influencing decisions.

Once I’ve read it, I’ll let you know if the cover or the author was a better guide to its value!

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Brilliance in contingency planning!

Monday, June 27th, 2011

Unfortunately, we have seen many instances supporting contingency planning this year – earthquakes, floods, fires, tsunamis.

Wendy Davie has shared a tip from a Christchurch client which I think is great. Having a disaster kit somewhere accessible but protected could be highly valuable in a natural disaster or other catastrophe, and Mary’s idea of using a wheelie bin is blindingly simple.

I wanted to say I love how we all respond to someone grabbing the obvious as a solution to something. A wheelie bin has obvious advantages for a disaster kits (waterproof, portable, easy to get, affordable) but how many people actually thought to use one like that? I see it as a good reminder to stop over thinking things, maybe step away completely and be a little creative – you never know what you’ll come up with!

While Mary’s idea was about life-saving disaster supplies (water, blankets, first aid, and so on), a similar concept could apply to business, especially businesses in disaster prone areas or at least in areas on high alert. If a disaster occurs during business hours, the same materials will be important (water, first aid kits, batteries, pen & paper) for the safety and comfort of you and your team. But, as a business, you may include a few extras such as a list of contacts (including contacts for all employees and their families), a copy of your contingency plan and checklists and weekly back up discs (if your kit is secure enough).

What’s your ‘wheelie bin’ idea for contingency planning?

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Remember the flood levy…

Wednesday, June 1st, 2011

For the coming financial year (and only that year we are told), a flood levy will apply to many Australians. The levy is to help rebuild the infrastructure for the communities hurt in the floods, fires and Yassi earlier this year.

Everyone with a taxable income over $50,000 will pay the levy – unless you are exempt because you are receiving a Government Disaster Recovery Payment for a 2010-11 natural disaster. You can find out how much the levy will be for you on the Treasury’s flood rebuilding site.

If you are self-employed, you probably pay tax via the PAYG system rather than regular deductions from your pay. Your annual letter outlining your PAYG instalments for the year will include the levy in those calculations. If you are an employee then your employer will deduct the levy along with your normal tax. You need to inform your employer or the ATO if you are exempt but earning over the threshold.

If you also employ people, you will need to add the levy to your usual deduction schedule. That is, for employees earning over $50,000, you will need to deduct an extra 0.5% or 1.0% with their tax – starting with the first pay after 1 July 2011. Businesses do not pay the levy, it is only for individuals.

So are you prepared for this levy? CE2DTMFHHKHT

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What uses up bandwidth?

Friday, May 27th, 2011

If you’ve tried reaching my blog or website in the last day or so you may have experienced some trouble unfortunately. I know I wasn’t happy to see a ‘exceeded bandwidth’ message when I tried to log in to post yesterday and again today.

Knowing I was well under my host limits a few hours earlier, I was surprised by the message and have contacted my host. Especially as the seond time showed about 12,000MB of bandwidth used in less than 24 hours!

No one has accessed the back end of my site or ftp (but I have changed apsswords anyway!) but my host found that someone (and let me add that it is very restrained of me to just write ‘someone’!) in Washington has been using my bandwidth. I should say ‘had been’ as that ip is now blocked.

My host has been great at trying to help me and extending my bandwidth to keep the site live while the issue was researched, so thanks Lucie at Multimediart.

My question however, is how is someone using up so much bandwidth on my site? No unexpected files have appeared on the site and apaprently no one unauthorised has logged in so I’m confused. Do you have any idea what this person was doing?

Does anyone have any suggestions to share so we can all avoid this sort of distraction and time-wasting in the future? I’d really appreciate any help I can get!

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Recycling is good for business

Wednesday, May 25th, 2011

What does your business do with the waste materials it produces? Have you even thought about it?

There are a surprising number of recycling options available – and many are listed by the business recycling website. This includes means of using those wastes to produce new products (the obvious recycling aspect) and ideas such as giving unused food to charity groups for direct reuse.

Personally, I believe in recycling as I hate seeing waste and hate perfectly good things filling up out tips. On top of that, there is the environmental aspect and a feel-good factor. However, for those who need a commercial justification for recycling business waste, here are a couple of points to consider:

  • if your local council restricts your bin size, you have to pay to remove your waste materials so recycling may save you money directly
  • more and more people care about the environment and ‘green’ practices so start recycling and tell people (potential customers) about it – it won’t generate sales in itself but may be the deciding factor between you and a competitor one day
  • your team will appreciate being able to ‘do their bit’ for the environment so they’ll be happier and have one less reason to leave
  • you may find recycling materials in-house gives you new product leads or saves you money, too. For example, make notepads for staff from old letterheads saves paper and the expense of buying notepads
  • it can give you a conversation starter or topics for blogging about – and sometimes new ideas are hard to come by!

Can you think of things to recycle? I’d love to hear of your ideas and successes - I may even copy some if applicable!

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Refining your Google searches

Tuesday, May 17th, 2011

If you’re like me, you use Google and similar search engines frequently and know a few tricks to make your searches as useful as possible.

Here are a few tips you may or may not use – and if you have some others, please add them to the comments so I can learn them, too!

  • restrict a search to one site by using site:wordconstructions.com.au
  • search for something specific on only one site by using the word and the site only command report writing site:wordconstructions.com.au
  • find the definition of a word with define:gerund
  • exclude a term from your search using a minus sign, so writer -fiction will bring results for writers without mention of fiction writing
  • include all similar uses of a word or term by adding the tilde sign; for example, ~ article
  • maintain certain spelling of a word or term with a plus sign so + Sidney will not bring up all the Sydney sites in a Sidney search
  • use * to replace any word, such as in professional * writer
  • find related sites usingrelated:wordconstructions.com.au
  • find a specific file type in a search – if you want to find only word docs about spelling, for example, you enter spelling filetype:doc
  • find all sits linking to a site or page usinglink:www.wordconstructions.com.au
  • do a general search without risk of finding inappropriate (ie adult) content using safesearch:breast   cancer
  • find out about a specific page usinginfo:www.wordconstructions.com.au/ebook.php
  •  use quotation marks to refine the search to your exact term; that is, “business writer” will give results about business writers only rather than results for all references to writer and/or business

Hope they help!

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Product Disclosure Statements – what are they?

Friday, April 29th, 2011

Do you know what a product disclosure statement (PDS) is?

Many people now use them, and various companies refer to them in their advertising, but from personal conversations about things I write, I know many people don’t know what the term means.

A PDS is simply a document listing the key features of financial products are described; it is the little booklet you got about your savings account, insurance policy, super account and so on. Basic topics covered by a PDS include fees, options, inclusions and joining/buying the product.

There are variations between industrires and companies but generally the company has to make a PDS available before you buy their product – they can’t make you read it obviously but they must have allowed you that opporutnity.

A PDS is a point of reference when deciding between products and when you need to know something later (eg does my house insurance cover rising water or just floods?) Many PDSs are long and may not be visually appealing, but they are worth holding onto.

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Lest We Forget

Monday, April 25th, 2011

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

I attended an Anzac Day service last weekend and it was very moving. It was also very interesting to learn more about the Lone Pine story and how it became such an important part of Australian folklore. The service was held beneath a Pine Tree seeded from the original Lone Pine (which was destroyed in thebattles in 1915); a seedling from the Melbourne tree was also planted so that the Lone Pine can always be represented in that park as part of our gratitude to those young men and women who fought for our way of life.

Doyou have a place near you that signifies history and remembrance?

Lest we forget.

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