Author Archive
Walking your Talk: Establishing Core Values for your Business
Posted by: | CommentsIn creating websites for clients over the last six years, I’ve met many different types of people, all within the context of a specific task at hand: developing a website. The process requires planning, thoroughness, and vision. It also requires the ability to idealize, on paper and in one’s mind, prior to making the website a reality.
Our process affects our customers in many different ways, usually bringing forward many emotions related to decision-making. We’ve refined our process to lead to a focused, calm, assured, and effective result. However, we’ve found someone’s internal emotional state often has the ability to influence any external endeavor.
I think about how this reflects in my daily life.
- Why am I here?
- What do I represent?
- What guides my daily decision-making?
- Who am I in my marriage, my business relationships, and my family?
- How do I do the right thing as a parent, volunteer, and member of my community?
Stephen R. Covey, in Seven Habits of Highly Succesful People, writes about character development. He researched the history of self-help and personal growth articles, and he notes that in the first 150 years of the United States, the literature focused on character-building. The tools promoted were related to character traits, such as integrity, honesty, personal responsibility, and honor — these are more “internal” qualities. In modern times, he found a shift in the literature towards technique-building. The tools promoted were related to influence, such as relationship management, networking skills, and personality-shaping — these are more “external” traits.
Your Non-Negotiables — Set Them and Abide by Them
Posted by: | CommentsWhat are your non-negotiables?
What are the behaviors that you absolutely must-have and absolutely will not tolerate?
Over the last five years, I’ve developed a “manifesto” of sorts that lists out the things that I am willing to work with and more importantly, the things that I will not work with — at all.
This list has helped me sort out “good” projects — which are beneficial and profitable to my company, from the “bad” projects — which do not fit what I am trying to do.
Here are five of the items on my list:
1) I have to have a good overall feeling about the project, client, or customer. If we don’t “jive” at the very beginning, I usually do not see this improving over time. If I get a bad vibe or if I’m uncomfortable about a potential project at the beginning, we usually redirect to another service provider. It just works better this way.
2) I don’t abide by any kind of bad treatment. For example, no one will yell at me, threaten me, or curse at me or my team. As an addition: we do our very best to stay away from anyone who attempts to threaten us with litigation or who has a litigatious background. Research comes in handy here.
Working as Part of a Team
Posted by: | CommentsNone of us can go it alone. We all work in an interconnected community of people.
After reading a recent WSJ article on “How to Succeed in the Age of Going Solo” (link: http://on.wsj.com/d87Gv7), I was reminded once more of the power and importance of finding a network of people.
Employment trends are showing more and more people taking on self-employment, with more and more women opening up their own shops, businesses, and consulting practices. We offer our abilities to ourselves, to our families, and to the larger communities in which we work: when we all work together, we all rise together.
Today I invite you to come up with a “best” list of 20 people who you want to become part of your inner circle. These may be your mentors, business advisors, or potential partners that overlap some of what your own business does (for example, graphic designers, printers, and web designers work well together. So do attorneys, financial advisors, and mortgage brokers, as mentioned in that article).
Whatever format it takes, or however you want to organize your list, create a list of these people who will be your “power partners” and who will help you succeed in the future. Consider this: by reaching out to them, you will also help them succeed.
Visionboard for your Success
Posted by: | CommentsI invite you to take a look at my own visionboarding process: I’ve been working on some variation of this for the last 3 years now, and I’ve been keeping a “attainable goals” list since 2001, when I first started being more proactive, positive, and engaging with my chosen line of work and my personal and professional mission statement.
My main purpose in being here on the planet is to educate, empower, and connect, and the specific avenue where I choose to do this is through working at my web design company supporting women in business and progressive organizations. I strongly support minority women and green business women.
My keywords list includes: green, sustainable, holistic, organic, fair trade, collaboration, open source, PHP/mySQL, Drupal, content management system, web design, web development. As a web developer, I work with multiple clients who are just formulating their overall business plan and strategy, and I like to think that the exercise of identifying what you’ll put on your website helps you understand what you are attempting to do through your business or endeavor.
People, Planet, and Profits
Posted by: | CommentsThe “triple bottom line” is something you’ve been hearing about lately. It refers to thinking about your business in a way that measures your impact on people, planet and profits.
Instead of solely reading a Profit and Loss statement and focusing on the “bottom line” (how much your company netted), the trend towards measuring a triple bottom line means you find measurable indicators socially, ecologically, and economically.
Globally, we’re seing more and more women starting and running businesses: with this comes more sustainable and green ways we can choose to implement.
- We can make workplaces more mother-friendly.
- We can offer opportunities to work remotely and use web tools for collaboration.
- We can offer more ways to communicate.
- We can make decisions based on how we impact our staff and vendors, clients and partners.
- We can be more eco-friendly, sustainable, and far-thinking in terms of our goals.
This year I’m going to be focusing more on the triple bottom line and how it applies to your business. I’ll be reviewing work collaboration tools and ways you can remain competitive by focusing on your social responsibility report card.
Website Trends for 2010: Top 5 Predictions
Posted by: | CommentsHere are my top five predictions in website trends. Believe me, there is so much information out there, but as someone who makes a living developing websites (and who has been doing so for the last 10 years), I highly recommend you configure your action plan for actively updating your website.
1) Go Mobile.
Have you created a mobile version of your website yet?
This should be as stripped out, clean code as possible, using basic XHTML tags and providing easy links and easier navigation.
It is possible, with most CMS systems (content management systems), to easily provide an auto-updated mobile version of your existing website. Ask your web developer for support on this.
2) Geo-location.
The web is moving the world back to your doorstep. Applications, coupons, listings, reviews, and businesses can be as simply found as a click on your mobile phone. Check trends on geo-locating and consider ways to extend your website with a local version, a community listing service, or leveraging Google Adsense and new mobile applications.
FOCUS on the Future
Posted by: | CommentsMerry Christmas and Happy New Year, everyone!
The close of the year is an excellent time to do some reassessment and set a course for the new year.
If I could have you remember just one thing from all your web browsings, I’d like you to remember this:
FOCUS your efforts.
By FOCUS, I mean:
F – Follow your passions
O – Overcome obstacles
C – Continue your Growth
U – Understand Systems
S – Share your Knowledge
FOLLOW YOUR PASSIONS
Over your lifetime, the process of understanding and following your passions will help you identify and navigate towards your highest, most worthwhile achievements.
I’m a true believer in following your passions. There is something within you that you know, deep down inside, is your core “thing to do.” It’s your mission in life! It’s what gives you a sense of deep, fulfilled purpose, and if you do not accomplish this thing, you probably feel just a little bit uneasy or bad inside.
Holiday Giveaway from Women on Business
Posted by: | CommentsCongratulations to our winner and THANK YOU to all who participated.
Thanks to CSN for offering a giveaway to WomenonBusiness.com readers.
CSN offers business and office needs such as office furniture, as well as office supplies and office accessories and decor.
They also offer various sections like Baby and Kids, Outdoor Living, Home Improvement, and Cookware and Bakeware.
Many thanks to all who participated. Here’s to a wonderful holiday celebrations and to a spirit of peace, thanksgiving, and unity for the close of the year.
With our warmest holiday greetings, from Women on Business! Bookmark our site and return often for more news, tips, business insights, and connections.
Getting Back to the Basics
Posted by: | CommentsOn my blog at ASuccessfulWoman.com, I invite new members to post what their goals are. So far, most of the declarations have been about transforming energy in some way: such as financial (“double my income”) or spiritual (“get back to the basics in my life”), or interpersonal (“increase my Twitter or Facebook followers”)
I have been thinking a lot about energy transfer lately — some themes that have been floating around my mind include:
- energy is something that we each have and that we each share
- I feel most energized when I do what I love and share that knowledge and skill, and get paid for it
- as entrepreneurs, our task is to provide more value to more people by creating systems and processes
- we have an ability to go green and transform the economy by using sustainable, organic, and holistic methods
- to grow a business, we desire the growth of a core community of clients who grow along with us
- listening to customers helps us understand what new products and services they request
- love is a form of energy, and money is a form of energy
Coaching as an Asset to your Business Development
Posted by: | CommentsHow does your business make a difference in the world?
In 2006 I began an intensive coaching process with Rob Seidenspinner of Sage Circle Coaching. Rob is a personal and professional coach and I was looking for specific insights into how my personal “story” was influencing my business outcomes.
The benefits I’ve seen are as follows. Not all of these are directly attributable to coaching, but I would say that the business-related items are attributable to my own personal goals, which the coaching relationship helped me clarify.
1. Development of a mission statement to help me formalize my thinking about what I am here to do.
2. An increase in the quality and types of referrals who we serve in my primary business.
3. A quadrupling of the typical amount of our new business account (from approximately $1000 – $2000 per account to $5000 – $10,000 per account)
4. Professionalization — such as getting a toll-free number and fax line, reaching out to increase our subcontractor availability, thinking like a leader of a team instead of just as one individual
5. Publication of my first and second book (in my initial coaching session, I envisioned that the book was a key “turning point”)
