But no matter how small your business is when you start, at some point, if you continue to grow, you’ll need to hire people. They may be full time or part time employees who work in your office or contractors who work remotely. Regardless of how they work for you, you need to know how to manage these people.

Managing employees is one area where entrepreneurs can be at a disadvantage over employees in a corporation- particularly if they don’t have past experience. In large corporations managers have company policy to follow and other managers or the human resources department to ask for advice. Entrepreneurs are on their own.

If you have to manage staff and want some guidance on how to do it better, a great resource is Lead Well and Prosper by Nick McCormick. While written with the corporate manager in mind, most of the tips and strategies apply equally well to the small business owner.

Unlike many management books that should be filed under “cures for insomnia”, Lead Well and Prosper is as entertaining as it is informative. A fast read – I finished it in only a few hours – this book is divided into bite-sized chapters. Even the busiest entrepreneur won’t have an excuse not to finish this book.

McCormick writes: “Managers don’t … aspire to mediocrity. In fact, many believe they are doing quite splendidly.” If you’re not sure whether you’re a good manager or are deluding yourself, you can take his Am I a Good Manager Test online.

Each chapter in Lead Well and Prosper focuses on a particular skill you need to be a good manager. Using conversations between fictitious Wanda and Joe to illustrate everyday situations, McCormick provides simple and easily implemented steps you can take to improve your management style.

In his chapter “Embrace the Uncomfortable” McCormack demonstrates the impact of avoiding uncomfortable tasks – whether it’s telling a customer you won’t meet a deadline or telling an employee they’re not pulling their weight. His action item for this chapter is: “Pick a task you’ve been avoiding for some time. Knock it out tomorrow before 8:30 a.m. Treat yourself to a nice lunch. Repeat!” That’s good advice for anyone.

Although I don’t currently have any staff myself, I found myself underlining passages and putting stars in the margins. These are sections I know I’ll want to revisit when the time comes for me to be a manager.

The most valuable part of the book is the action plan in Appendix D. It includes a year’s worth of actions you can take to improve your management skills. These actions are broken down to quarters and months and are small enough that even the busiest entrepreneur will be able to fit them into her schedule.

Whether you are an experienced manager or are managing people for the first time, Lead Well and Prosper is a must for your bookshelf.

Andrea J. Stenberg

This is why I’m intrigued by a new program – 23Blogs.com – FREE Blog Roll TEXT Link Exchange.(1:10). This is a free link exchange program that offers you links – and clicks – based on the number of clicks other blogs get from your site.

When you register with 23Blogs.com you are given HTML code to post on your site. This code creates a live ad box containing links to ten other blogs. Each time someone clicks an ad from your site, you are credited one click. The system then owes you one click. The more traffic you drive to other sites, the more often your ad appears on other blogs.

You have a choice of ten different styles of boxes to add to your site. The format of the different styles is the same, but the colours vary widely so you should easily be able to find one that suits the style of your blog.

When you first join you get 1000 credits in your account. This will start you off so you appear on other blogs even if you haven’t sent a single click to another site. Hopefully this will help you build traffic so by the time you’ve used up the initial 1000 credits you are generating a good number of credits on your own.

A key feature: you can choose which category of blogs will show your link. This is important because I don’t know that I’d want The Baby Boomer Entrepreneur to appear on the Filipino Hunks or Adult Dating blogs.

On the down side, I’m wondering how much new traffic this tool will generate. A quick look through the sites listed on some of the 23Blogs.com sites I visited showed that most of these blogs don’t seem to be high-traffic sites. On the other hand, since membership is free, it might be worth a test run.

My biggest complaint with 23Blogs.com is the lack of contact information on their site. They don’t have an email address or even a form for contacting them. This anonymity always raises a red flag with me.

Overall, I think 23Blogs.com – FREE Blog Roll TEXT Link Exchange.(1:10) is an interesting concept and is probably worth a test. If you do decide to give it a spin, be sure to keep careful track of your stats – clicks from 23blogs.com plus overall traffic to your site. If you don’t see noticeable increases in traffic after a few months, delete it and try something else.

Andrea J. Stenberg

Others put a little more effort in it; they invite their friends and colleagues, check the size of their network regularly and feel happy they’re making progress. And yet, they’re still not using LinkedIn to its full potential.

If you’re one of those people who has an account but doesn’t quite know what to do with it, then Ajay Jain’s book is for you. Not a how to navigate LinkedIn manual, Let’s Connect: Using LinkedIn to get ahead at work is a guide to using LinkedIn strategically.

Jain’s book is a nice mix of practical strategies and quotes from LinkedIn users illustrating how they’ve used the methods Jain is writing about. These mini case studies add real authority to Jain’s book and are interesting reading.

For example, Jain writes about strategies for using the Answers section of LinkedIn to your benefit. You can pose questions to conduct market research or to get ideas to solve a business problem.

You can also use Answers as a subtle form of marketing; by asking questions related to your field of business you put your name – and perhaps your website – in front of potential customers who may visit your site or start a conversation. Or they may invite you to become a connection.

Let’s Connect includes some ways for using LinkedIn that I hadn’t considered. If you are hiring an employee, looking them up on LinkedIn can potentially find you information that you couldn’t get elsewhere. While candidates tailor their resumes to the position they’re applying for, they may have a more complete resume on LinkedIn.

Furthermore, if they are connected to someone you know personally, you may get more information about this person than by contacting their past employers. You also know that any recommendations are real and haven’t been altered by the candidate.

Jain also provides some information about LinkedIn that is not widely available. For example, you have a lifetime supply of 3,000 invitations. When you’ve used them up, that’s it. Forever.

This is one piece of information I’ve never seen publicized on the site. As a result of reading Jain’s book, I’m a little more choosy about who I send invites to. In fact, for people who are not currently a member of LinkedIn, I’m considering sending them invites by regular e-mail so that I don’t waste an invitation on someone who may not be interested in joining LinkedIn at all.

Overall, I enjoyed reading Let’s Connect. I’m planning on using some of Jain’s strategies to build my own network and my own business. If you’re a member of LinkedIn – or thinking of it – and aren’t sure how to use the site effectively, Jain’s book is a worthwhile purchase.

To find out more about Jain, visit his LinkedIn profile. If you’d like to read some sample chapters, order the book or get other information go to www.techgazing.com/linkedin.

If you’d like to connect with me on LinkedIn, check out my profile. My e-mail address is andrea@thebabyboomerentrepreneur.com. Let me know you’re a reader of The Baby Boomer Entrepreneur and I’ll accept your invite.

Andrea J. Stenberg

Whether it’s for business or personal use, another great way to connect with people online is by using virtual invitations.