Small Business Blog

The Internet has made the world a much smaller place, but it can still seem overwhelming to monitor what is being said about you and your business. No matter what industry you are in, you will eventually have a disgruntled customer. Many will also have to contend with competitors who try to boost their own reputations by attacking others.

To monitor your name, I recommend Googling yourself. This will remind you of what people see when they look for you. If you have pictures of a racy Cancun vacation on your MySpace page, this might be the time to set that to private if you are developing an online business reputation. Then when you make a great contact you can be confident they will find the professional image you are cultivating when they Google you to find out more information (because they will!).

If you have a somewhat common name, odds are that people will have to determine which information belongs to you. There are a couple of strategies around this:

• Use your picture in profiles, articles and websites to clarify your identity
• Buy your name domain (www.betsytalbot.com) even if you do not choose to do anything with it now. For a mere $10/year you can make sure that a porn star or sleazy politician with the same name as you doesn’t steal your online thunder, or even insure that a competitor can’t buy your name and redirect it to their site.

Setting Up Alerts

Often when something is said about you it may not end up on page 1, which means you won’t see it until it has gained enough traction to make it to page 1. If you have a lot of time and a great memory you could Google your name and keywords every single day and scroll through all the pages (I hope your name isn’t Jane Smith!), but I am sure this is not the best use of your time. Whether you are monitoring who is talking about you or want to know how many times your product or service is mentioned online, Google Alerts is the easiest, cheapest solution for you.

How do you set up a Google alert?

• Go to www.google.com and sign in (if you don’t have an account, set one up take advantage of all of Google’s services - it is free!)
• Click “More” at the top left side of the screen and then “even More” from the dropdown list.
• Click on “Alerts”
• Type in the word or phrase you want to search for
  Use quotes around phrases to be more specific (i.e., “betsy talbot” instead of betsy talbot - without quotes always returns results on any mention of “betsy” or “talbot” on the internet - too many alerts!)
• Select Comprehensive as the type and choose how often you want the report
• Confirm the email address.

It is really that simple! On the time schedule you choose, you will receive an alert every time your word or phrase is used. You can use this to monitor your name, company name, suite of products or services, or even to keep up with the news on industry terms important to you. You can even follow news on your favorite author or business guru.

Monitoring your online reputation is a wise business move, and one that takes little effort and zero dollars.

This is a great post on the etiquette of social networking - don’t miss it!  I especially like the advice about being a giver, respecting the other person’s time, and making sure you have an online presence for your new contact to check out.  Good stuff!

The Simply Effective Guide to Reaching Anyone Online

Editor’s Note: As many of you know, I have been working with an accountability partner for over a year now. She has made a huge impact on my business and personal life, and she has now systemized that approach as part of her coaching services at Upstart Smart. Below is a guest post from the most important person in my business life - Amber Riviere - as well as special deal for Small Business Blog readers for her accountability partner program.

10 Ways an Accountability Partner Can Improve Your Life and Business

1. An accountability partner is objective. S/he doesn’t have a vested interest in the decisions you make, so the advice you receive is not biased or slanted. The goal of your accountability partner is to help you achieve your goals - period.
2. An accountability partner can help you identify the most probable road to success.
3. An accountability partner serves as a sounding board for your ideas. S/he will help you resolve problems and formulate solutions in your life and business.
4. An accountability partner can help you achieve balance in your life by keeping you aligned with your priorities and life’s purpose.
5. An accountability partner can help you achieve greater focus and clarity. S/he can help you stay on track by concentrating on what’s important and by eliminating the clutter and distractions that get in the way of your success.
6. An accountability partner can help you fine-tune your ideas, plans, and strategies.
7. An accountability partner can help you identify your life’s purpose and align your life and business goals to help you achieve it.
8. An accountability partner can help you create a road map for accomplishing your goals.
9. An accountability partner can inspire and motivate you to go after your dreams.
10. An accountability partner can help you find the people, systems, and tools needed to reach your goals quickly and effectively.

If you are starting or running a small business, you need someone who can help keep you on track to achieve your business goals.

Sign up today for the UpstartSmart Accountability Partner Program and receive 2 BONUS WEEKS FREE!*

*This offer expires March 31, 2008. To take advantage of this offer, you must sign up through the link below.

Sign up for the UpstartSmart Accountability Partner Program and receive 2 BONUS WEEKS FREE!

After March 31, 2008, you can sign up here.

RescueTime is really working! If you haven’t already, check out my original post on this time-management application. It tracks your total computer usage and lets you know where you are spending the most time. From there you can set goals to spend more or less time on certain projects.

For me, the biggest time hog was email. I spent 33% of my time the first week on email. I generally work about 45-50 hours per week with more than half that time spent on the computer. I was easily spending 10 hours a week on email. Email! Some weeks I don’t even spend that much time WRITING and that is a core piece of my business (another surprise to myself - no wonder the book is making such slow progress).

After seeing that 33% the first week, I analyzed my usage and found that notifications from networking sites and informational emails were heavy distractions for me. I set up a folder called “Internet Reading” for all of that and set up rules for my Inbox to automatically process them. As new emails of this type came in, I added them to the rule. It will probably take me a month or so to get everything set this way, but I can already tell a difference in how I’m using email (instead of letting it use me).

Once or twice a day I click on the folder, scan it to see what is appealing, and read those entries. Then I do a group delete of all the items I have read or do not wish to read. This has substantially cut down on my email reading time because it is done at one time and when I am ready to do it, not when the little alert shows me I have an email waiting.

Another thing I did was start unsubscribing from emails I do not have time to read. Yes, it is all important, but I am only one person and can only take in so much information at a time. So instead of subscribing to every guru I want to follow, I only subscribe to those I have actually been following. I put a lot of my “good intentions” on my ever-growing “not to do” list. It is okay to not take advantage of every good thing out there.

My latest figures show my email time down to 24%, which is pretty good in such a short period of time. I plan to get it down to 10% by summer. And all that rescued time will go back into the book that has been on the backburner lately.

Try RescueTime yourself and see what changes you can make to streamline your day and get some of your time back.

Do you wish you had a virtual business card? One that had your picture or logo? If you work virtually, or if you network a lot like I do, having an online business card with a picture is a great idea. It reinforces who you are to your contact and helps personalize electronic communication.

Hyplet is a free service that allows you to build virtual business cards and banner advertising for your email signature, blog, or website. It is really easy to use - just click “create” to get started.

Below is my latest creation, which is basic and used as my email signature.  I started with a blank template, but there are many designs to choose from.  Make a banner advertisement for your services, a contact form for your website, or use it as an email signature like I have.

Set up your own Hyplet and “hype” yourself in the comments section!

I’ll be speaking on the topic of blogging in April and need your help finding out the biggest hurdles/questions about blogging. I *think* I know, but I want to make sure I make the talk as effective as it can be for the audience.

Thanks for your help in pinpointing blogging issues. And please don’t forget to sign up for my free Special Report on Blogging from Start Finish at my main website as your gift for participating.

The blogging survey is here. Thank you!

There is a reason the flight attendants tell you to put your air mask on before helping the person in the seat next to you. You have to help yourself first if you want to survive in business.

Making sure your company is profitable gives you the means to perform charity/pro bono work long-term and from a position of abundance. Helping everyone else and disrespecting your own needs is an almost sure path to failure.

Many of my friends with service-based businesses have told me their battles with the “coffee date.” They meet someone at a networking event, the person expresses interest in getting to know them, and a date is set up. When my friends arrive, however, they find the date is really not about networking and helping each other succeed; it is about getting free advice.

Coaches, healers, organizers, computer technicians, etc., – they all have a great deal of knowledge as their “product.” No one would ask a widget maker to give away free widgets over coffee, so I’m not sure why it is expected that service professionals would give away free advice. The reason their information is so valuable is that it took them a long time to learn and master it.

If you are a service provider who regularly gets asked to coffee dates that turn into free consulting sessions, here are some tips to get your time back:

• Set up your coffee date via phone rather than email. You can usually find out quickly if the person truly wants to get to know you or just wants the benefit of your expertise.  Even better, make it 3- or 4-some coffee date with a few others you want to get to know.
• While on the phone, ask them the top 3 things you will learn about their business and referral needs and tell them the top 3 things they will learn about yours. This sets the expectation for the give-and-take of a true networking meeting.
• There is nothing wrong with giving away occasional free consulting – if you are doing so by your choice. Make sure you do this deliberately and let your audience know the market value of your services. This helps them appreciate it as well as making sure they don’t tell other people to come to you for similar free sessions.
• Devise a playbook for these situations. I have a mental checklist for new contacts who want to “get to know me better” and you can do the same (this also works well with people who only want to sell to you and are not interested in a true referral relationship).

Some of my entrepreneur friends have come up with terrific ideas for warding off the takers and sussing out true customer leads and networking relationships.

The best by far?

Offer an introductory consulting package with a price that goes toward any of your services. For example, a phone/in-person consultation could go for $150, and if future services are booked that money goes toward the package. If not, the customer got $150 worth out of the first meeting and you both walk away satisfied. Pitch this package for every “iffy” coffee date request and check the response. If you do have a free networking coffee date that goes off track, you can always refer back to this package and let your date know you are happy to help them at that rate.

Remember that as a service professional your store’s inventory is in your head. Treat it as well as you would a product, and in no time you will have the means to offer pro bono work by choice and on a grander scale than you can as a new business owner.

This weekend I attended a workshop in San Diego with my friend, Betsy (no, I do not require that my friends share my first name, but it does make it more fun).

The workshop was on Creating Your Ultimate Life and took the best of Jack Canfield and Jim Bunch’s coaching and combined it into one program. I learned a lot about my values and how they related to my business and life goals. Even more importantly, I learned how much my environments impact my chances of success in both happiness, health, and wealth.

There are nine environments in everyone’s life, ranging from body to physical space to relationships. Jim says having an unhealthy environment in any of these areas will impact living a fully productive life.

For instance, in the category of physical space, an unresolved clutter problem can impact your other environments as well as your chances of reaching your other goals. If you come home from work and feel your energy sag, or you have to yell at your kids or spouse/partner for not picking up after themselves, you are robbing yourself of the energy you need to reach your goals. You also create a problem in your relationship environment.

I was shocked at the number of people who had a problem with clutter and kept thinking to myself that my friend Debbie the Professional Organizer should have been standing at the door with business cards as we left on break. I saw people nearly break down in tears over issues of clutter, and that’s before we really got to the deeper stuff on relationships.

As Jack Canfield moves into more television and film work, he is moving away from the writing and seminars. It appeared to me that he is grooming Jim for an eventual takeover of this portion of his business, and Jim seems like a worthy successor.

It was a hugely satisfying weekend, and one that will make a difference in the way I set goals and follow through for years to come.

Later this week I’ll tell you about another amazing part of the conference - Fred Johnson. You won’t want to miss this one.

You are a small business owner so you obviously work more hours every week than the average Jane, right? Hmmm, maybe not.

RescueTime is a free web-based time management system that shows you where you are spending the most time on your computer. Download the free widget and RescueTime starts tracking your time in each application right away. You then check the dashboard at RescueTime and “tag” everything with the label you want.

For instance, rather than tag each of my customer’s websites with a specific name, I use the tag “customer site.” General research for client projects is just labeled “research.” My first weekly report arrived on Sunday, and I was surprised to see that 33% of my computer time was spent on email. Wow. Another big time consumption was social networking sites at 14%.

Once you tag your usage and monitor it for a few weeks you may consider adding daily or weekly goals to help with your productivity.

Some of the tags I’m using:

• Feeds (tagged to my Bloglines feed)
• Writing blog (tagged to my blog site)
• Writing my book (tagged to my Google Docs page)
• Business Networking (tagged to Biznik, Ning, LinkedIn, etc.)
• Googling (I was only5% curious last week)
• Customer sites
• Entertainment (who doesn’t like a little Perez Hilton over coffee?)

Thanks to Zita Gustin for telling me about the site. It is my new favorite productivity tool! Let me know in the comments if you use this and how you find yourself adjusting your time afterward.

Looking for a little advice for your small business but don’t have the time or money to consult an expert?

Check out the Microsoft Small Business Summit on March 24-27 for a virtual seminar on topics of interest to you.  The seminar is free and has some top-name experts I’m interested in, like John Jantsch from Duct-Tape Marketing.  Each day has 4 hours of live speakers you can access right from your computer.

Click here to register for the free event, then sit back and get some expert help from the comfort of your own office.  “See” you there!