Improve My Business

Happy first day of Spring!

You know what that means…time for Spring Cleaning. When was the last time you thought about cleaning up around your office? I’m not just talking about straightening your desk and your top drawer; I mean really getting into the dark and dingy crevices that are never seen. Deep in your email box maybe, messages from 2003? What about those old programs and trials you downloaded and used once? Do you have 6 draft versions of the same document? Clean out your cache? Really, it’s better to do it now then when your computer freezes up and you get so frustrated you just delete it all!

Start with your desktop, do you really need all those shortcuts? I’m sure with a bit of thought you can create a file management system that will really make sense to you. A clean computer desktop is just as important as a clean desk-desk top.

Trust me, you’ll feel so much better!

Technorati Tags: de-clutter, organization, organizing

Get Help for Less

In my last post I wrote about delegation of duties. When I was starting out, and first heard about this concept, I thought, “I am barely affording Ramen noodles – and you want me to HIRE somebody??!?”

Then, I found out the secret (which I’m going to share with you now):

THERE ARE TONS OF FREE RESOURCES OUT THERE!

1) I worked with the local respected university – I found an MBA class that took my business plan on as part of their class assignment – and voila! I had a full-blown, professionally reviewed marketing plan created for me (for the cost of a few rounds of Starbucks and some deservedly glowing reviews for the students).

A few rounds of coffee: $28.94

A professionally generated business plan delivered on time and to specs:  priceless

2) Several universities have internships that you can post to – either paid or unpaid internships. I tend to post paid internships if I can, since many non-profits post unpaid ones and those opps tend to be pretty good [so the better students, who don't need the money, tend to gravitate there]. Even when discussing paid internships, I’m not talking big bucks here – typically $8-$10/hour – but the quality of folks that have applied is great. I recently posted a summer position for a technical admin, at $9/hour – and got a graduate MBA student who is looking for an interim job for a few months; a college senior who knows HTML and can design websites, landing pages, and blogs for me; and engineering student who needs a technical job on his summer resume in addition to his lifeguarding job, and will be perfect to do research, compare options, and make recommendations for services and products I’m considering buying. Since the intern position is part-time, it’s a great ‘resume builder’ job that can also be flexible for the applicant (a big plus for them if they want to work part-time); and since I will get lots of good stuff done for $9/hour, it’s perfect for an entrepreneur also.

3) Your city or state’s local jobs program. Many of the positions that you may need filled can be done by folks presently in the unemployment line… and there are programs to get subsidies for these folks, so you split the cost of their employment with the city or state. It’s a great way to cut your payroll costs significantly, while helping the local economy. This varies from city to city and state to state, so you’ll need to check your local resources to see what’s available to you.

Technorati Tags: business plan, improvement, organizing

Preventing overwhelm

You’ve taken the plunge into the wide world of entrepreneurship – and although it’s exhilarating, liberating, and just a tad scary, you realize (with a gulp!) that you now have to do everything – big, blue sky thinking, research, development, delivery, billing, supplies, logistics, even cleaning the toilets. About this time, many entrepreneurs experience overwhelm. It seems as if the to-do list has a life of its own, and is growing faster than you can possibly whittle it down. How to prevent this?

Some basic rules keep me sane.

1) Keep the list electronically - so you can sort it easily. I code the list – things that need to be done this week (W); things that need to be done this month (M) – including recurring things like pay the bills, send out invoices, etc.; and strategic things (S) that may include identifying and booking teleclasses, seminars, and conferences, completing paperwork for certification (Historically Underutilized Businesses, Minority-Owned, etc.)

You can just as easily code it with A, B, C or another system you prefer.

2) Set priorities within every category – what needs to be done FIRST this week or every month - both short-term/tactical, like get high speed internet installed; and long-term/strategic, like refine target market promotional materials.

3) Delegate/outsource. I know, you don’t have any money, you can do it yourself faster, it takes so much time to train someone, blah blah blah. But since you are the creative genius, and you are currently bogged down in administrivia, you need to get that off your place (and your to-do list) — so suck it up and send it out. What are good candidates for this?

- Look at your ‘every month’ list

- Look at the things you hate doing (hint: if “get arm amputated without anesthesia” is higher on the list than the dreaded task, you should outsource it)

- Look at the things you’re not good at doing

How to delegate effectively? More on that in our next post…

Technorati Tags: Business, entreprenenuership, organizing

I came across this great article at MyCustomer.com on Key Attitudinal Indicators vs Key Performance Indicators, and why KAI’s may be better suited (as a leading indicator) to predict customer loyalty than KPI (a lagging indicator)… give it a read and see if you agree!  Please post your thoughts here… I’d love to hear ‘em.

Technorati Tags: customer service, KAI, KPI, organizing, predictor, process, process improvement, process monitoring, processes, quality metrics

A guest blog by Ragen Chastain, The Renegade Organizer
www.RenegadeOrganizer.com

New Years Resolutions and the Status Quo

Since it’s that time of year, I thought that we would begin at the beginning with the ever-popular New Years Resolution to be more organized. Last year plenty of people resolved to get more organized. Most of these Resolvers set aside a weekend to “organize”: they filed, they color coded, they put their pens in size order. At the end of the weekend the space was spotless. Success! Unfortunately a few weeks or months later it looked just like it did before. So this year many of those same people will be making the same Resolution. What went wrong?

Clean vs. Organized

Most people walk into a clean office and say “Wow, this is so organized, I wish my office was like this”. The truth is, the only thing you can tell by looking at an office is if it is clean. If the person in question is spending four hours a day to keep the space looking neat and tidy are you still signing up for that plan? I hope not.

An organized space and a clean space are two completely separate things. In a clean space everything is put away with no guarantees about how long it might take to keep it that way. In an organized office you can find your stuff and use it efficiently. I’ve seen offices that look like a hurricane hit a paper factory but the person who uses the office can quickly and easily find and use all of their stuff. That office is organized! Of course, it’s clearly not clean. I’ve also seen offices where you could eat off the mouse pad but the person who uses the office doesn’t have a clue where her unpaid electric bill is. Clean, but not organized.

How can I stop cleaning and start Organizing?

True organization is about designing systems that support you in the work that you do. When I work with clients we use a simple three step process: Think, Plan, Organize. That means that first we think about what’s not working in the space, then we brainstorm a number of solutions to each problem and choose the one that makes the most sense to the client. Only then do we organize based on our plan. In my thirteen going-on-fourteen years as a business organizer the one thing that I’ve learned is that there is no system that works for everyone. It takes more work to start from the ground up (instead of following a one-size-fits-all system or book) but the result is processes that makes complete sense to you and an office where the first place that you think to look for something is exactly where you’ll find it. Best of all, you get to choose the balance of clean and organized. You can design organization to include keeping the office clean if you want, but it’s all up to you. So go forth and organize and save this year’s Resolution for something more fun!

If you enjoyed this article by The Renegade Organizer, please visit her website: www.RenegadeOrganizer.com, or sign up for her newsletter here.

Technorati Tags: organizing, resolutions