The Baby Boomer Entrepreneur

“Great things are only possible with outrageous requests.”

-Thea Alexander

As a recovering codependent, I often find it impossible to ask for help; I feel like I should be able to do it all, and help you too. However, I’ve noticed over the years that the most successful entrepreneurs never try to do it all.

They ask for help - help with accounting, scheduling, filing, planning. Often they hire this help.

But what about an outrageous request? Just like we need to have larger than life dreams to really go somewhere, we need to ask for big things to get great results. Asking for help with the little things may get you comfortable with asking for help, but asking for the big things will lead to greatness.

Part of an outrageous request is getting specific. You need to know what specific help you need in order to get it. I was at a networking event where we had an opportunity to ask questions of the group. I saw that people who were really specific got the best results.

One woman is looking to retire in ten years. She wants to buy a vacation home in Costa Rica. She asked who knew anyone who owns property there. She got great responses. Another man had been trying to sell to a particular company. He asked who knew one of the owners. He got ten responses.

Conversely, people who asked questions like, “who knows someone who buys insurance” got poor results. Everyone buys insurance but most people already have someone they buy from. Why would they refer to this person? There’s nothing differentiating them from anyone else.

However, asking, “who knows someone whose car insurance rates have gone up because they’ve had an accident?” would get much better response. Yes, fewer people know someone in that situation, but the request is more specific.

Pamela Slim of Escape from Cubicle Nation wrote about this very thing in her post Let ME Help YOU. She writes about the type of requests people make and how to make them in such a way as to get you the help you need without putting the person you’re asking on the spot.

Pamela writes:

Ask about the process, not the people.

• DON’T ask: “Would you review my business plan?”
• DO ask: “I would love to have some expert review on my business plan. How do you suggest I go about getting it?”

Asking for help doesn’t come easy for most of us. But if we get specific about the help we need, ask in a respectful way, and really listen to the response, we have an opportunity to grow our business to new levels.

Andrea J. Stenberg

Have you ever received the help you needed because you asked? Please share it with us by leaving a comment.

Okay, I’m exaggerating. I usually love technology. But sometimes technology - the very thing that’s supposed to increase your productivity and save you time - slows you down.This can happen when you upgrade or change software programs.

For example, when I first started using Microsoft Office 2007, they’d changed the layout and commands so much I found myself being bogged down. The first time I used Excel I spent 20 minutes trying to figure out how to use a feature I’d used a million times before in the old version. Needless to say I was not happy.

A similar thing happened to me this week when I changed e-mail programs. I switched to Mozilla Thunderbird. Since Thunderbird is Open Source (everyone has access to the code and can make changes or additions) it’s supposed to be one of the most secure programs out there. It also has a number of plug-ins which allows you to customize the features.

I’d been thinking about making the switch for a while. Since I already use Mozilla Firefox as my web browser and I’d heard great things about Thunderbird I knew it would be a good choice.

But I’d held off because I knew there would be a learning curve. I have my old email program organized how I like: different categories of folders for saved email, a variety of address books, an automated signature.

This Monday I decided to take the plunge. I downloaded the program and installed it. That part was easy.

Then I spent three hours trying to figure out how to import my addresses. I finally gave up and asked my husband to do it for me.

But you get what you pay for - he only moved over some of the address books. Even though he promised to do the rest, it’s now Friday and … As a result I’m switching back and forth between the two email programs whenever I need an address that’s not been moved over.

I won’t even go into the time I wasted looking for cool plug-ins to add to the functionality of Thunderbird. I know these plug-ins are cool and I will use them, but I could have spent time elsewhere this week.

Upgrades are inevitable

For your business, upgrades and changes to software and hardware are inevitable. Do you know anyone still using Word Perfect 5.1 for DOS? So you’re going to have to plan your upgrades.

First do your research. Do you really need to upgrade? Are the new features of this software necessary for your business? Will they save you time or increase productivity in the long run? Or are you looking to upgrade just because it’s new.

Read reviews of the new software and try to find people who are already using it. Ask if they felt the switch was worthwhile. Get a feel for what you can expect.

Take your time

Next plan your timing. Even the most tech savvy entrepreneur will have a learning curve with new software. Don’t upgrade right before a major deadline. Try to find a time when your workload is lower.

Then allow yourself some time to explore the new features and become accustomed to the program. If you need to import data from other version - as I did with Thunderbird - consider hiring someone to do it for you. Unless you’re sure of what you’re doing, the money will be well spent.

When it comes to technology, change is inevitable. But a little planning can minimize the main of the change.

Andrea J. Stenberg

Recently on a discussion forum of bloggers a rather heated discussion ensued about whether RSS feeds should send the full post or just the first few lines. It wasn’t something I’d given much thought to and had never considered it was a subject that could generate much passion.I began wondering if the passion was unique to bloggers or if readers of blogs felt equally passionate. To find out a posted a question to the “Answers” section of LinkedIn. I was amazed. Readers of blogs were just as passionate - if not more so - than bloggers.

The results of survey showed 74 percent feel very strongly that RSS feeds should include the entire post. They don’t want to click through to the site; they want to read everything in their feed readers.

Nineteen percent felt equally strongly that they want a summary or the first few lines of the post. This allows them to scan their reader to see if a particular post is of interest. If it is then they’ll click through. One responded subscribes to 450 feeds and needs to have this summary.

None of the respondents were on the fence. Everyone felt strongly. Some even stated that if a blog they read offers the wrong type of feed they’d unsubscribe. Wow. What’s a poor blogger to do?

I did get a few respondents tell me it is possible to include both options for subscribers. I will certainly look into this and once I figure it out I’ll be offering a choice to subscribers.

In the meantime, I’d like to do a poll of my RSS subscribers. If you feel strongly one way or another, please leave a comment. I’m willing to go majority rules until I can start pleasing everyone by offering both.

Andrea J. Stenberg

Yesterday I spend an amazing day at Hick Tech - a technology conference here in Owen Sound. Starting at 7:30 am and finishing at 6:30 pm, I was exhausted by the end of the day.

But I learned a ton, particularly in the workshop on SEO by Yahoo! Canada’s Darryl Peddle.Darryl made SEO sound simple. Today I’ll share his five reasons you need to learn about SEO.

1. SEO = More Traffic

Putting search engine optimization (SEO) to good use on your site will increase your ranking in search engines leading to an increase in traffic. Well duh!

2. Good SEO = Better Traffic

The better you are at SEO, the better quality of traffic you have. Particularly if you can optimize your site for long tail searches your customers and prospects are actually using.

What’s a long tail search? A search of a very specific keyword or phrase. Not as many people are searching these keywords, but the people who do will be highly targeted. For example: the long tail search of the phrase “cheap flowers for Mother’s Day” is much more effective for a flower shop than optimizing for “flowers”.

First of all, the competition is much higher - more people are using that word in their website. Second, the keyword “flowers” may also get gardeners, poetry lovers wanting poems about flowers, and students researching a paper on the reproductive cycle of a flower.

3. Better SEO = Increased Sales

All selling is a numbers game. More traffic and better quality traffic will always lead to more sales, even if the copy on your site is less than stellar. You wouldn’t be in business if you didn’t want more sales.

4. Good SEO Protects You

Nobody’s perfect and nobody can please everyone all the time. It could be you dropped the ball on customer service or it could be the customer hates the colour of your eyes. It doesn’t matter why, but occasionally anyone can get a client who has a hate-on for them.

The crazed ex-customer may spend an inordinate amount of time on the web bashing you. If you aren’t paying attention to SEO around your name, you could have potential customers doing a Google search and discovering the first five listings are for www.yourcompanysucks.com.

5. Good SEO Leads to a Snowball Effect

If you score in the top three of the search engines, you’ll be seen as an expert. Bloggers and journalists will start calling you and writing about you - they don’t have time to look lower on the list. The just want the best people they can get to quickly. If you’re on the top of the list, that’s you.

The more people are writing about you, and linking to your site, the better search engine ranking you have. The better search engine ranking you have, the more people will write about you …

Over the next few weeks I’ll be sharing more of what I learned about SEO.

Andrea J. Stenberg

Yeah me! I just received notice that The Baby Boomer Entrepreneur is included in Evan Carmichael’s Top 50 Blogs Posts on The Law of Attraction In 2008.

If you check the list you’ll see I made numbers 36 and 39.

If you look more closely, you’ll notice item number 36 is credited to a Brazilian blog that has reprinted my post Can Using the Law of Attraction Help My Business – or Is It A Load of Crap? At least they gave me credit (sort of) and a link. Oh well, they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Anyway, Evan’s list is a great way to find more information about the Law of Attraction.

Andrea J. Stenberg