A trusted employee can leave. A marketing strategy that’s worked for years can suddenly stop sending you new business.

Whenever things go bad, you have a choice – to be a thermostat or a thermometer. A thermometer reports current conditions – what’s the temperature right now. That’s all it can do.

A thermostat however, controls the temperature. Too hot? Turn the thermostat down. Too cold? Turn it up.

If the economy tanks, your employees leave, your best customer decides to work with someone new don’t just sit and complain about it. Be a thermostat and make changes. Do more marketing, be more creative, try something new.

“When life hands you lemons make lemonade” isn’t just a cliché. It’s a blueprint for how to run your business. You can’t control everything that happens. You can only control what you think, say and do.

So go out and be a thermostat!

Andrea J. Stenberg

I’d love to hear what you think. Please leave a comment.

I find that the beginning of each quarter is a good time to pause for a moment and look at your goals and results so far this year. Are your goals still relevant or have you made a decision to go in another direction?

If your goals are still relevant, have you been working towards them or did you get distracted by the bright shiny object and forget about your main objectives? I’m convinced the majority of people who start a business are at least border-line ADD and we easily get distracted by something new.

If you found you did get off track, sit down and create a plan for the next 90 days: what are you going to do each week that will get you moving towards your goals. Write them on your calendar.

Too many times we lose track of our major goals because we become over focused on the day to day minutia of our businesses. But if you schedule your major goals on your calendar, you’re more likely to remember to work on them.

Now is also a good time to look at your stats: traffic to your website, incoming links, sign ups for your email newsletter, Facebook page likes, Twitter retweets and whatever metrics are important to your business. In reality, you should be tracking these each week or at least each month. But I know the truth, you’ve probably been neglecting this.

Create a spreadsheet, a chart in Word or even a handwritten note that you post on your bulletin board. Commit to recording them at the very least each quarter. Keeping track of your stats will show you which areas are growing and which are stagnating. Know this will help you tweak your marketing over time.

Since you’re in business, you need to look at the money. Are your sales in line with what you projected for the year? If they are, celebrate. Give yourself a small treat. If they’re not, figure out why that is. Did you neglect to do enough marketing? Did you forget to follow up? Do you need to rethink your offers?

Finally, make note of things that are going well so far. Congratulate yourself for your successes. And make a commitment to keep going in the second quarter of 2012. Let’s make this year the best one yet!

Andrea J. Stenberg

Please leave a comment and share how you track your business and your goals. Tell us where you are so far and what’s coming up in the future.

A bright spot in the book is Hill`s assertion that most people don’t become a success until after 40 or even 50. In fact, he says “For the average person the greatest capacity to create is between 40 and 60”. I suspect that if Hill were alive today he’d expand that upper end.

Why are people not able to achieve before their 40s or 50s? According to Hill, it’s sex. We’re too focused on it in our youth.

At first I laughed at this quaint notion written by a man from another time. But then I started looking more closely. Maybe he’s right. And it’s not just sex, it’s all the things that go along with it. I’ve been married for two decades so dating etc are out of the way. I no longer have a toddler under foot, demanding my attention. When my teenage son comes home from school he can pop a pizza in the oven all by himself; he doesn’t need my help or permission. Maybe Hill wasn’t so crazy after all.

Mark Walton, author of the book Boundless Potential: Transform Your Brain, Unleash Your Talents, and Reinvent Your Work in Midlife and Beyond
agrees with Hill. Walton writes “neuroscience has revealed that we are hard-wired for reinvention through the emergence of extraordinary new creative and intellectual powers in life’s second half”.

For those of us who are starting or building a business in the second half of our lives, this is encouraging news. We may be competing against young people with more energy, but we have the advantage of more knowledge, experience and apparently creativity and intellectual prowess.

As we continue this transition into the knowledge based economy – where are brains not our brawn are what powers the work – age will not be a factor in your ability to do the work.

Employers seem slow to recognize this fact as we can tell from the unemployment numbers for people over 40, as well as anecdotal evidence I’m sure you’ve heard. However, since many of us are turning our backs on the corporate world and becoming Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs, we may find that successful companies will be those that embrace mature workers.

Regardless, I find both these books encouraging. Although I haven’t achieved the level of financial and business success that I want, I know I’m on track. And I have decades ahead of me to continue to expand and grow my business.

What do you think? Please leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Andrea J. Stenberg

I know because I’ve done this too – waited for the time/situation to be just perfect before getting started.

But then last week I was reading Prince Charming Isnt Coming
: How Women Get Smart About Money by Barbara Stanny. In this book, Stanny talks about how women often wait for a man to look after their finances for them. There is one particular passage that jumped out at me.

“Please note: “Mr. Right” or “Prince Charming” need not be a man, or even a person. Our prince could be an ideal job, an insurance settlement, the lottery jackpot, or just an amorphous “something” – anything that we fantasize will save us financially. To become genuinely smart with money, we must get to the point where we can say with total conviction, I can do it myself.

This passage really grabbed me by the throat and made me realize that there are a number of projects I’ve had on hold because I didn’t have everything perfect.  I gave myself a long, hard look and realized I’ve been waiting for my business “Prince Charming”. In this case, my Prince isn’t a man either. Here’s what I’ve been waiting on and what I’m doing about it:

Schedule time

I’ve been waiting for more time to finish writing a book and several ebooks. Well, guess what? The free time is never there.  I need to schedule it to make it happen. How did I solve this? I booked several three hour chunks this month. Will it finish all the writing projects I have? No. But it will get me closer to finishing.

Don’t let cash flow stop you

I need some money to implement a couple of my projects and cash flow is tight right now so I’ve been putting them off. Instead of continuing to wait for things to get better, I arranged for some barter with a graphic designer to get one project completed. Then I looked at my accounts receivable and contacted people who owe me money.

Next, I looked out for “low hanging fruit” or ways I can make money quickly to allow me to finance my bigger projects. Finally, I looked for (and found) ways to complete my projects without spending as much money. It won’t be as fancy as I hoped, but it will get to market, which is far better than having a project on the drawing board indefinitely.

Procrastination

There are a couple of things I need to be doing to promote my products and services that I’ve just been putting off. I call it procrastination but really it should be called either perfectionism or fear of success. Either way, I’ve looked it in the eye and started implementation. I’ve created a list and committed to crossing one item off my list each day until it’s done.

If you’re like me, you have some projects that you’ve been putting off until the time is right. I heard a saying: The best time to plant a tree is 10 years ago. The next best time is today.

What are you going to plant today?

Andrea J. Stenberg

Follow the money

First, you need to measure your money. Are your books up-to-date? Bookkeeping isn’t just for tax time. You need to keep them current so you can predict cash flow and see what products and services are profitable.

Cash flow is obvious, but looking at what areas are profitable is just as important. I knew one business owner who upon looking closer at his books, realized his best selling product was actually losing him money.

While the direct cost of the product was less than the selling price, the cost of servicing it meant he actually lost about $100 per unit. By eliminating that one product, although his total sales went down, his profits shot way up.

Do you know what products or services are most profitable? Look at your books. If you’re not sure how to determine profitability, ask your bookkeeper or accountant.

What’s your web traffic?

Measuring your web traffic is another important measurement to track. You need to know how many people are visiting your site, how many are subscribing to your RSS feed, how long people are staying, where those people are coming from (did they find you on Google, from Facebook, from someone else’s site), and what pages they’re looking at. You also need to track trends from month to month. Knowing whether traffic is increasing or decreasing is more important than total numbers.

Google Analytics can tell you what keywords people are using to find your site. This can help you figure out what type of blog posts to write, what kinds of headlines you should have, and even insight into new products.

Social Media stats

Social media stats are somewhat misleading and difficult to measure. Having a large number of connections, doesn’t necessarily mean your social media efforts are profitable. You can have a large number of followers but if they never engage with you or take action, they’ll do you no good.

Also, you can’t get a straight measurement of profitability. If you run a Google Adwords campaign, you know how much you paid per click and what percentage of people bought your product. You can tell right away whether this campaign is worth your time and money.

With social media, it’s occasionally very direct. For example, recently I made a post to LinkedIn. About 10 minutes later I got a message through LinkedIn from a colleague asking if I do training on marketing with Facebook. I was floored because I thought he knew what I do. After a brief meeting over coffee, I ended up with a $1,000 client.

However, most social media efforts are much less obvious. For example, I know before I do business with someone I check out their social media profiles. I always check out their LinkedIn profile and look closely at their testimonials. However, they may not be aware that I did this, nor how much of an impact that had on my decision.

Likewise, I often see people follow me on Twitter, then connect on Facebook, then sign up for my email newsletter. Later when they become a customer, how much of that business can be attributed to social media? I would never have made the sale if they weren’t on my email list, but they never would have been there in the first place if not for social media.

Your challenge

My challenge to you is to check your stats this week.

1. Get your books up-to-date if they aren’t already. Then notice which products are most profitable. Are there ways you can increase sales of these products?

2. Check out the traffic to your website. Has it increased or decreased from last month? Where is that traffic coming from? What keywords are people using to find you? If you’re getting a lot of traffic from one source, look for ways to get even more. For example, if Facebook is sending a lot of people to your website, vow to spend an extra hour this week on Facebook. If you don’t already have Google Analtyics set up on your website or blog, make that your first priority.

3. Notice whether any of your customers are connected with you on social media. If there’s one site that is working particularly well, spend an hour this week working on planning ways to be even more effective on this site and how to engage with your connections.

Finally, put a reminder in your calendar to do this check each month. You can set up a recurring appointment with yourself to monitor your progress. After all, if you don’t measure it, you can’t improve it.

Andrea J. Stenberg

Do you monitor your stats regularly? How has that helped your business? Or are you a seat-of-the-pants kind of person? Please leave a comment and share your story.

Working from home is sometimes a challenge in the summer. Yes, there’s the fact that I have no air conditioning and my office is on the 2^nd floor. (Last week’s heat wave in eastern Canada and U.S. was brutal).

There’s also my teenage son who is home from school and around the house. Plus there’s the sun shining and I want to be outside.

As a result, there are some days where sitting at my desk staring at my computer seems unbearable.

But I still need to work. The mortgage still needs to be paid and we have this pesky little addition to food.

So, what’s a home-based entrepreneur to do?

I posed this question to my network and got some interesting answers.

Some people like to get up and do something physical: “a walk, mowing the lawn, stacking firewood. For me physical activity is the key to getting unblocked.”

Other’s shared that tidying the office is a good start. I know my desk often looks like a paper bomb exploded on it. And if I let it go too long the paper breeds and soon my office is covered. Taking even 10 minutes to clear the desk to the surface can often be enough to unblock me and get me going. In fact, that’s what I did right before writing this blog post.

Another friend commented that she picks the easiest thing on her task list. Getting that done and out of the way motivates her to keep going.

And sometimes, I think you need to give in to your inner sloth and enjoy the summer. Get outside and do something fun, even if it’s just sitting on the deck having a beer and reading a trashy novel. You’ll feel refreshed and pleased that you no longer have the worst boss you’ve ever had. And likely, the next day you’ll come back to your work with renewed energy and enthusiasm.

Andrea J. Stenberg

What’s your trick for getting back on track? Share your thoughts and experiences by leaving a comment.

When I was in my mid-20s I actually tried to start my own business doing very much what I’m doing now (minus the social media since Facebook etc. didn’t exist back then).

I survived about a year before I packed it in and got a “real job”. The problem was that I thought in order to be a business person you had to be independent, and independent meant doing it all myself.

This time around, being a little older, and a little wiser (I hope), I recognized that trying to go it alone was part of the problem. When I was raising my son I needed a doctor, advice from my mom, and support from other mothers. So I realized I needed the same kind of support for my business.

In the past five years I’ve worked with a variety of coaches, made friends with other business people who I can bounce ideas off of, and joined a networking group. I have an accountability partner who I speak with once a week to talk about what I’m working on. I have a strong network of business friends on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook who I can ask for advice. And on occasion I even talk to my husband about my business.

When I was younger I thought needing other people was a weakness. But if you talk to any successful business people, if they’re honest, you’ll find they’ve all had help along the way. I spoke to one man recently who owns and runs five businesses. He’s been doing so for over 10 years and still meets with the previous owner several times a week to get advice, feedback and support. I know one online entrepreneur with the business in the high six figures who works with three coaches and has a mastermind group.

When you’re building your village you need to make sure that just like a real village it is a diverse group of people. It is often easier to build relationships with other people who are the same stage in their business as you. This is useful because you’re both going through the same things and can really relate to each other.

However you also need to make sure your village includes some experienced business people. Being around more successful business owners helps remind you where you are headed. They can help you remember to focus on your goals and plans rather than just your daily to do list. If you’ve surrounded yourself with the right people will share some of their knowledge and be happy to give you feedback.

Of course, it’s always good to include some new business people in your village. It helps remind you how far you’ve come, and lets you pay back for the help you’ve received along the way.

If you find yourself struggling in running your business, take a moment and ask yourself who is in your village. If you don’t have enough support, advice, and inspiration in your immediate network it’s time to grow your village. Look for a coach, join a networking group like BNI, or reach out to someone you know and invite them out for coffee. You’ll be glad you did.

Andrea J Stenberg

What did he mean? You don’t have to be the best to be successful. The people who get ahead don’t worry about being perfect. They get off their butts, take action and get their products to market.

So here are my thoughts on why imperfect execution is better than perfect planning

Work your plan

While I’m the first one to tell you that planning is important, I know that too often planning can be a form of procrastination. Rather than getting down to the work, you keep tweaking the plan. Get a plan in place and start working it. Over time you can tweak the plan as you see what works and what doesn’t.

Beating the competition

How many times have you seen a competitor release a new product that is just like the brilliant idea you had a year ago but is still in the planning stages? Don’t you kick yourself when that happens? I know I have. Let’s learn from our mistakes; when you have a brilliant idea quickly create a plan then work on execution so that someone else doesn’t beat you to the punch.

Get results now

Customers don’t buy your plan. People have to know how to buy from you, so make it easy. A less-than-perfect sales page, advertisement, or social media campaign will get infinitely more results than that piece of paper with your plan on it that never gets implemented. Whatever method you choose to market with, get on with it. You’ll get better as you go.

You can do better?

How many times have you seen somebody else’s product, read somebody else’s book, or been to somebody else’s seminar and thought to yourself “I can do better than that”? Well if you really can do better, prove it! Nothing is perfect. If those less-than-perfect competitors are selling, get off your butt and get your better product out there too.

You’ll feel better

You’ll feel better. Seriously. That frustration you feel every time you look at your plan but don’t see any forward action will go away. Sure you may feel some trepidation, some nerves, as you get started. But as Dale Carnegie said: “Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence encourage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.”

So if you have some new product that has been sitting in the back your mind, or new marketing strategy you been planning to attempt, quick tweaking the plan! Go out and get busy.

One of the things I do is use binders. Each project has its own binder, as does planning. This has been a relatively useful way to keep track of ongoing work (when the labels don’t fall off the binders).

New ideas were little harder to track. For a while I was doing the Post-it note method. Every time I got a new idea I’d write it on a Post-it note and stick it up on the wall next to my desk.

This didn’t work for two reasons. One, after a while the Post-it notes just became visual noise; I just didn’t see them anymore. The second reason is the mental clutter they caused me. Although I can block out the content on the Post-it notes, I still knew they were there. Although I wasn’t consciously aware of it, it was causing me constant stress.

I moved away from the Post-it notes to whiteboards. Now whenever a garden idea I could just write it on the whiteboard. The nice thing about the whiteboard is it’s one continual surface so it’s less visually cluttering than Post-its.

However, the whiteboard method isn’t perfect either. It’s great for recording an idea as it occurs to me, but what do I do later? Eventually the whiteboard gets full. I needed some way to deal with the ideas.

Then I thought about Microsoft OneNote. This is a software program that comes as part of Microsoft office. I knew it was part of the package but hadn’t looked at it. Last week I decided to open it and take a look. I’m glad I did.

OneNote is designed for the entrepreneurial ADD brain. You can have different folders for different projects, and different pages in each folder. You’re not stuck to writing an orderly fashion as you would be in a word document; you can put notes anywhere on the page. You can import PDFs or JPEG’s; you can even add audio. You can also hyperlink between different factions within OneNote.

This has been a really freeing tool for me since I started using it. I’m able to take pieces off my whiteboard that I want to implement, and create a kind of plan. As I get new information, new details, new action items to add to this plan, they’re easy to add with OneNote.

When the things that held me back from using OneNote is the fact that I don’t always do my planning and brainstorming sitting at my desk. In fact, I often find it is better for me to leave my office entirely when doing brainstorming. Additionally, I have both a desktop and a laptop machine. I was worried about not having my OneNote document on the correct machine.

Then I had a brainstorm. I’ve been using Dropbox to share documents with customers and colleagues. Why not use it to share my OneNote between computers?

That’s what I’ve done. So now I’m using my whiteboard to record ideas that pop up when I’m in the middle of another task. Then, at a later time, I can take these ideas and add them to my OneNote document. Now I can access this document regardless of which computer I’m using. (If you’d like to see how to add OneNote to Dropbox read this blog post on RetroHack)

Andrea J. Stenberg

Have you been using OneNote in your business? Please leave a comment and tell us how you use this piece of software,

I was surprised because Sean is very loyal to the local business community. He makes a point of shopping in town, even if going to the city or buying online will save him a few bucks. So I asked him to explain.

It goes back to his career. You see, Sean sells cell phones. He’s an independent sales person and works out of his home, rather than a retail location.

His main focus is larger companies that need multiple phones for their employees. However, he also sells to small businesses that only need one or two phones.

Sean gives great customer service

What makes buying a phone from him different is the level of customer service. Sean goes above and beyond for his customers. He helps you decide which phone and which plan is best for you. He’ll deliver the phone to you personally. And if you run into problems, he cuts through the red tape of the corporation and solves it for you.

But there is much more to being a customer of Sean’s. Sean is extremely loyal to his customers. If you buy a cell phone from him, he works hard to help your business succeed. He’ll recommend you to his vast network of contacts. He’ll frequent your business himself. In fact, even if he can save money by going to your competitor, if you’re his customer and they’re not, he’ll buy from you. Every time.

So why was he so mad at this local business?

You see, this local business used to be a customer of his.  When his cell phone contract came up, he decided to shop around. This retailer found a cell phone that was a better deal than Sean’s cell phones so he switched.

Seems reasonable; get a better deal, switch suppliers.

So why was Sean so mad?

The guy saved peanuts

First of all, this new phone plan is $3 per month cheaper than Sean’s cell phones. That means this guy is only saving $36 a year.

Compare that to the $150 Sean recently spent in this man’s store. And he probably spent three times that amount annually. That’s a lot of money compared to $36 per year.

He didn’t shop locally

Second, the cell phone provider this guy switched to was selling to him out of head office in Toronto, not even a local competitor. If it had been someone local, Sean could have lived with that. But not shopping locally is a big sin in Sean’s book.

No loyalty to customers

Finally, there’s fair play. By shopping around himself, Sean could buy products much cheaper than from this local retailer. In fact, this guy’s not even the cheapest place in town, never mind compared to the city or online. But Sean purchased from him because he got good customer service from the staff. But mainly, he shopped there because he’s loyal to his customers. But this guy didn’t show the same level of loyalty.

So, the upshot is, this guy has saved himself $36 per year. But he’s lost $500 per year in sales. And I expect I’m not the first person Sean’s told this story to, and I won’t be the last. I know for myself, I feel slightly less inclined to shop at this retailer’s store. I just don’t quite have the same warm fuzzy feeling that I used to.

So, at the end of the day, was it worth it for this guy to switch suppliers? I suspect not.

Andrea J. Stenberg