One of the factors influencing your happiness and success is the environment you find yourself in - and you do have control over it.

I recently read a blog post by Donna-Marie which reminded me of the impact people have on your life. I honestly believe that if you surround yourself with positive people, you will have a more positive attitude and are likely to find solutions and opportunities. Which of course means that if you spend lots of time with negative, no-hope people, it is much harder to reach your potential and feel happy.

This can impact many of your choices, such as:

• make sure you employ staff who are positive and creative rather than complainers
• only attend seminars and networking events where you feel a positive environment - if group members are not supportive or encouraging, you probably won’t benefit much from spending time with them
• if choosing between two suppliers, pick the one who has a can-do attitude or enthusiasm over the one who makes the project sound like hard work or an interruption to their schedule
• only use a coach or mentor who believes in success and finding solutions

Who you associate with can even impact on your writing style - positive people use words like “can”, “will”, “value” and “ideas” which inspire you and make your writing positive, too.

Have you ever experienced an obvious change by changing who is around you?

I once knew some people who couldn’t  help themselves from lying and adjusting perceptions to maintain their view of reality. Their behaviour made my uncomfortable and I didn’t like not being able to trust them, so I made a conscious decision to not associate with them. There was actually a great sense of relief when they were no longer part of my life, and I have taken care since to choose who I spend time with whenever possible.

Back in April, I wrote about cuboree - a camp for Victorian cubs and leaders. I wrote that I expected to be able to use cuborre as examples in business behaviour and strength.

As I mentioned, cuboree was affected by strong winds that have since been called a cyclone. The entire campsite of about 4,500 people (mostly 8 - 10 year olds) was locked down for an entire afternoon.

It was certainly an experience to remember and thankfully there were no major injuries, but it wasn’t something anyone had expected or hoped for!

There were various things put in place over the storm period that kept us all safe. For instance, leaders were told a storm was coming the previous night so we could prepare our campsites and warn the cubs in the morning that there would be strong winds. Programs were adjusted to suit the conditions and regular updates were provided to pack leaders. The fact that there were high wind rated marquees available, as well as permanent buildings,  shows how the organisers had planned for problems. The cuboree website was already in place so it was simple for the camp to keep parents and others ‘at home’ informed about the cubs, rather than having 3,000 parents ringing or visiting the campsite.

In business, being prepared for possible problems is called contingency planning and is very important. Planning doesn’t mean you think the problem will arise, but makes it easier to deal with the problem if it did arise. It’s like having some paracetemol in the cupboard - you may never get a headache but if you do, you want the medicine quickly.

Contingency planing depends on the size and potential impact of the problem. For instance, running out of ink for the printer is probably covered by having a spare cartridge in the cupboard and ordering a new spare once it is used. However, the plan for how to cope if your business premises are burnt in a fire will be a lot more complex and detailed.

Some contingency planning is simple and practical - having spare ink for printers, spare light bulbs and a first aid kit - while others are much better if written out and added to the procedures.

How much contingency have you planned for in your business? Have you done this formally or just built up a supply of spare materials for instance?

I would love to hear some examples of how contingency planning has saved your business in some way, too.

Have you ever noticed how changing one word can totally change a document or someone’s understanding?

I don’t mean where the wrong word is used accidentally (for example, a typing error changing boy to buoy) but where an appropriate word doesn’t work as well as intended.

Sometimes the word doesn’t work because of the audience. For example, I have seen Australian children (and adults actually!) struggle over American books when they write about pacifiers (dummies) and diapers (nappies) - that’s life if the author was aiming at American children, but bad judgement if the author was aiming at Australians.

Often, however, a word is used that has hidden meanings that can detract from what you were actually aiming at.

I recently had a discussion about the word therapist versus counsellor. While both words can describe a person you talk to about issues and (hopefully) get some insights and direction from the sessions. However, people perceive the two words in different ways - do you? Personally, a therapist implies someone who will help fix a problem (compare to a speech therapist or physiotherapist) but a counsellor is more about working through ideas or situations. So which word is best will depend on what message you are trying to give.

Another example is calling goals or targets ‘milestones’ instead of goals. Michelle of Shel Design was struggling with the concept of setting goals - to her, the word goal implied a final step whereas setting milestones was easier as they were just part of her business process and development. In this case, the word goals was appropriate but had certain hidden meanings for people like Michelle - when writing, those hidden meanings are important to consider, too.

When reviewing your writing, consider your use of words - are some of those words going to mislead some of your readers? Are there hidden meanings you haven’t considered?

Use your words wisely!

It is now June and the end of financial year is rapidly approaching - are you ready for it?

Here are some of the things I am considering at the moment to maximise my position at 30 June. Is there anything else you do at this time of year?

• send out all pending invoices and statements as soon as possible - not only does it increase your cash flow this month, many other businesses will appreciate being able to pay (and claim a tax deduction) this financial year
• pay off all outstanding invoices if possible - you may as well claim deductions now rather than in 13 months time! And the new tax rates may mean deductions this year will help your tax position anyway
• consider making a contribution to your super fund - this is tax deductible for the self-employed now
• if you or your business supports a charityand you haven’t made a donation yet, now is a good time to do so as it can then count as a tax deduction this financial year - I wonder how much their donations go up in June each year!
• if you are eligible for a Government Co-contribution, your personal contributions of up to $1,000 must be made to your super fund by 30 June  - and changes from the budget or an increased income next year may mean you aren’t eligible next year so get in while you can!
• consider making business purchases that will be needed soon. Not only can you claim it as a tax deduction, it may save you stress when you do actually need the item - printers notoriously run out of ink the day your proposal is due!
• get your accounts sorted and in order - the more organised they are, the quicker you (or your accountant/tax agent) can get the return completed and submitted
• collate related information, such as a travel log or noting the distances travelled, home office bills, private health insurance policy details, bank statements and PAYG statements
• if you run a service business, check the proportion of income from each client as tax rules can change if more than 80% of your income is from one source. There’s not a lot of time to adjust that, but if you’re on 81 or 82% a few quick projects may make a difference
• consider taking out health insurance if you are a higher income earner ($50,000 for a single or $100,00 for a couple/family) - the higher income brackets come into effect from 1 July 2008
• check if there are any expenses you can (and will benefit from) pay now rather than later in the year - for example, insurance premiums and interest on investment loans can be paid in advance to be claimed as a tax deduction now, and are sometimes cheaper paid as a lump sum. Obviously, this affects cash flow and other factors so is not always hte best plan, but it never hurts to research your options!

By preparing now, you may decrease your tax liability and be ready to start the new financial year with a clean slate.

My earlier post listed some examples of poor survey questions I have come across, so now here are some tips for making your survey questions effective…

1. Know what you are preparing the survey for - and how you will use the results. By planning the results, you will know what questions you need answered and be sure to word them to get the relevant answers. For instance, if you want to know if clients prefer green or blue so you can change your corporate colours, you won’t bother asking “Do you like pink?”
2. make each question clearly different - if someone has to read a question two or three times to see why it is different to a previous question, they are likely top give up or answer incorrectly. Be particularly careful to not ask the positive and negative for the same point.
3. don’t just copy the same responses for every question. Yes, it is reasonable to give responses such as excellent and poor to some questions, but not if you ask “did the book help you?” A bit of variety is more interesting and makes it more likely people will read each question properly.
4. check questions follow on from one to the next, especially if you are using software that provides different questions depending on earlier responses. For example, if someone answers “I don’t have children” to question 1, question 2 really shouldn’t ask “how old are your children?”
5. Always provide a response for everyone. It is frustrating for someone who can’t give any of your responses as their answer so always include every option or a way of indicating nothing applies.
6. Make sure every question and provided response makes sense. That means read every question/response pair individually. For example, “was the presentation interesting?” works, “was the presentation informative?” works but “was the presentation expectations?” doesn’t work.
7. every question must be simple and clear - if the question is too complicated you can’t expect useful results. Simplify questions by
   • using simple and short words as much as possible
   • divide a long question into two parts if possible
   • give responses to choose from rather than an open ended question
   • staying to the point - and keeping to your purpose
   • keeping all question short - it’s much easier to complicate 12 words than 6!
8. Always use good grammar and spelling so people aren’t confused or distracted by your errors.
9. Present your survey well so people will actually read and respond to your well written questions!

Ideally, prepare the questions and leave them for a couple of days. Then reread each question to make sure it makes sense and will get the answers you are after. Once you are sure the questions are workable, ask someone else (or a few someone elses) to answer the survey for you and provide feedback on questions they weren’t sure of.

A well written and prepared survey can be a very valubale tool for your business so it is worth putting the time and effort into making it as good as you possibly can.

Aside from the content of the survey itself, it is very important that any surveys or feedback forms are well prepared in other ways.

I just answered a survey that included at least three of the following mistakes and it has left with me with the impression that those business owners don’t care about details or consistency - so why would I trust them with promoting my business (their apparent service)?

So before you make a survey available to your customers, check how it presents and do a test run to see it really does work - better yet, get someone else to do the test run for you.

1. Be careful of what you make a compulsory questions/answer. If a compulsory response isn’t included, the person can’t submit their survey and may get frustrated and move on which means you don’t get their feedback. And most people won’t tell you they had this problem, either.
   So if you do make a question compulsory to answer, ensure there is an answer for everyone so all can answer - even if one answer is “don’t know”, “prefer not to answer”, “none of the above” or similar.
   And if you give a range of answers including ‘other’, make sure that ‘other’ is an acceptable answer. I have done surveys where I can’t submit unless I choose a response instead of ‘other’ - forcing me to choose an inaccurate answer as well as my true comments.
2. Most small (and even larger) businesses use a third party to run surveys. This generally means the survey appears more professional and can be easier to use - for example, not many businesses can afford the programming to do an online survey each time. While this is a valid practice, minimise the third party as much as possible.
   For example, if you complete this business branding survey, which is run on a third party survey site, you will be directed to the host business’s website once you click on ’submit’. This way, the business itself is being promoted and gains more traffic from people doing the survey. The other option is to let people go to the third party’s homepage once the survey is complete.
3. Brand the survey as much as possible. If the survey is a serious part of your business, it should continue your brand. That means add a logo, use your corporate colours, use the same style of writing, use your corporate fonts and use relevant images as applicable. You may not be able to make it match your web template or change fonts, for instance, but brand it as much as possible.
4. Keep it as short as possible - you probably want responses from a range of people, not just the bored and those who love surveys, and busy people don’t have time for long surveys unless they see a potential benefit from it.
   Be careful with the number of questions - if one more question or comment will create a new page, review it. Someone scanning a survey will see there is another page and decide it is too long which would be a pity if the next page was only one question - or worse, if the next page is simply a “thanks for doing our survey” message.
5. Look at the presentation - is there too much text so it looks complicated or time consuming? Does it look professional or just thrown together? Is there a nice mix of multiple choice answers and written responses, or just written responses? Does it look easy to complete?

Once you are confident you have good questions and a well prepared survey/questionnaire, the next step is to announce and promote it appropriately. Remember that many people won’t fill in the survey just because you want them to - you have to give them a reason to want to do it themselves.

And then make sure you make use of your survey results!

Use your words wisely!

It’s unlikely that you have never done a survey or filled in a feedback form about a seminar or such. Unfortunately, it is also unlikely that everyone one of those questions you answered was clearly written or easy to understand.

If you are involved in preparing any surveys/feedback forms, it is important to think carefully about how you ask questions. Obviously, the first step is to know what answers you need - do you want to know how old people are or just the difference between adults and teenagers?

Here are three recent examples I have come across where the question is not going to get the right responses:

“1. Please list as many soft drink flavours you can think of”
“2. For each flavour, please select A, B or C where A is ‘yes, I knew it was a flavour but forgot it’, B is ‘I didn’t realise it was a flavour’ and C is ‘I’ve never heard of it’. {and then list every flavour whether or not the person listed it in question 1}”

So if you had written orange as a flavour in question 1, how can you select A, B or C in question 2? As it was an online survey and answering was necessary, people would guess an answer so the final results mean nothing.

“Were you satisfied with the course handbook?

• excellent
• very good
• good
• ok
• poor

The options do not answer the question - was I satisfied can only be answered with yes/no/partially. To offer those choices, the appropriate question would be ’How would you describe the course handbook?’

“Which of the following have you ever given your child?

• brand X vitamins
• brand Y multi-vitamins
• brand Z mulitvitamins
• brand XY kids calcium”

Personally, I hadn’t given any of them to my child but there was no option to say ‘none of the above’ or even ‘other vitamins’.

So once you have written any questions, go back and read them in order to see if they make sense and are complete. One way to check multiple choice answers make sense it to add each one to the question so “were you satisfied with the course handbook? excellent” quickly shows an issue.

I’ll go through some tips on writing useful questions soon!

I have often used bad examples of writing, so I thought it was time I acknowledged receiving a good email!

A little while ago, I noticed a discrepancy between an invoice and my bank statement so I sent a polite email to the supplier. I noted the problem and the resolution I wanted. The supplier replied to me email and I was impressed by the response.

The email was:

Hello Tash,

Thank you for your email. I understand you are concerned that, {stated my issue in their words}. I see that you would like {repeated my requested resolution}. Below, I have addressed your concern in detail.

And then went onto to answer my concern.

The email is polite and clearly shows they have read my complaint and are treating it seriously and respectfully. It started with my name and was obviously written by a real person in answer to my email - not just a standard response.

In fact, I think it makes a pretty good template for how to construct a complaint response! As a customer, I felt heard and respected, and my issue was dealt with.

So next time you have to answer a customer complaint, or even a customer query, remember the steps:

1. use the person’s name
2. restate their issue to show you are listening (or reading!)
3. restate any resolutions they suggest
4. answer the issue
5. above all else, be polite and respectful

Happy writing!

In an earlier post, I wrote about cuboree - a camp for Victorian cubs and leaders and the wind storm that hit the camp.

When they joins cubs, each child makes a promise which starts “On my honour, I promise to do my best” - and doing their best is one of the key principles we use to encourage and develop the cubs. Every week, the cubs also reaffirm their promise to do their best.

The cyclone that hit during cuboree gave the cubs (and their leaders!) a challenging afternoon as they were kept indoors under cramped conditions.

Leaders did their best to keep the cubs occupied - in the marquee I was in we found pencils and paper, folded paper planes, sang songs, told jokes and played a DVD as part of keeping everyone busy and happy. Leaders also did their best to keep fear away form the cubs by managing the risks for them and protecting them as much as possible - a number of times I saw leaders leaning over cubs to protect them from falling debris, and leaders escorted children who needed toilets rather than letting them face danger alone.

Camp cooks did their best to provide nutritious and interesting snacks and meals, despite lack of power and/or gas to cook with.

The police did their best to keep us safe and arrange for the most dangerous trees/branches ot be dealt with.

Camp organisers did their best to keep us and families informed, everyone safe and accounted for, and to get some people home early as required.

But above all, we all were so proud to see the cubs do their best in trying circumstances.

Yes, cubs did ask “will we be in here much longer? when can we go outside? where will we sleep tonight?” and similar questions, but I did not hear one complaint from them. The cubs devised their own games and activities, moved around and spoke to cubs from other packs and places (they found it a great opportunity for badge swapping!) and did whatever was asked of them. They even queued for toilets trips without making a fuss. Sitting on the ground eating salad rolls for dinner didnt even raise a complaint.

The cub’s behaviour made difficult circumstances bearable and we were all proud of them. It was also inspirational to see them behave so well - it made it easier for us to do our best, too.

Next time you feel like doing ‘good enough’ in your business, take a moment to think about those cubs and ask yourself if you are dong your best in the circumstances or not - and what you will do about it if the answer is no.

Like the heading of an ad or article, the subject of an email is important.

For one thing, if someone needs to find some information you sent them, it is much easier to sort through emails if the subject clearly identifies the email contents. I have been known to send the same person three emails in a row so that each topic is in its own email for easier sorting and answering, rather than one long email covering three topics.

If you are emailing someone new or sending out an enewsletter, your choice of subject can mean the difference between someone reading it or deleting it. Some points to consider in writing your subject are:

• avoid hype and over-used words as many people can’t be bothered with more of the same
• be honest. For example, I recently received an email via my website with the subject ‘business cooperation’. The subject interested me so I read it only to find it was purely an ad for their services. Not only is their subject dishonest, it annoyed me so much I would never use their services and added their email address to my junk mail list.
• relate it to the reader -  an that is easier when you know more about who you are emailing in the first place. As an example, “help with your marketing” has more appeal than “we offer great marketing services”
• personalise it if you have the technical ability to do so - but be warned that trying to personalise it and getting it wrong is not good. Yes, I have received emails addressed “Special message for {add name}” - the word ‘you’ would have been a better, safer option
• add an enticement or call to action - sometimes a time frame can help, such as “sale this weekend only”
• keep it as short and simple as possible - for one thing, some people’s email system doesn’t give much space for the subject so if it takes to long to get to the point, people may miss the point altogether

How often do you put much effort into your email subject? And I’m curious - do you usually write the email or the subject first?

Happy writing!