Do Focus and Engage

Here are some tips to help us focus on the people we interact with and how we can engage them to build a lasting relationship with us:

“What can I do for them” attitude – we always have something to offer to those who need help. If we live by this attitude, we are likely to become more attentive to those who communicate with us. I’m not talking about your business nor your products or services either.  There is always something person to person, in our connections, where we can help. 

In helping others widen their network, you are gaining their trust. They will know that you are not just about making sales but also willing to help others.

Use their name – when meeting people and they introduce themselves, make sure that you remember their names and use it when you are addressing them. If you encounter someone with a unique name or you did not get it the first time, repeat their name and ask if you pronounced it right. Doing this will make it easier for you to remember them, and at the same time, you are avoiding the possibility of mispronouncing their name when you talk to them again.

Why does this matter? The person you are talking to will feel important when you use their first name, and they will also love to be able to call you by your first name. It also leads to a more comfortable conversation.

Maintain eye-contact – paying attention means that we have to show them that we are really listening to what they are saying. Maintaining eye-contact is important when you are talking to someone.

Avoid using your phone. Avoid looking elsewhere. When someone is talking to you, just look them straight in the eye. Doing this will make them feel that you are really interested in what they are saying. They will feel important because they feel that you are respecting them. In return, you gain their trust and respect. When it’s your time to talk, you will have their full attention as well.

Get their contact details – after meeting and discovering how you two can help each other out, don’t forget to exchange contact details. It can be anything from mobile, email, or social media accounts. Once you have it, do stay in contact. Take the time to contact them and see how they are doing, or you can send them your company newsletter (with their permission) to keep them posted. If you did well in communicating with them when you met them, getting in touch will be easy. Invest time in building strong relationships with the people you meet and your business will reap the benefits of long-term professional connections.

All these sound like a lot of work because you may have other ways of building connections and gaining customers. However, these tips will ensure that you develop deeper and stronger relationships with the people that you meet. If you incorporate these as part of your business values, you will gain trust and respect at a deeper level.

It may take a lot of your time, but you will be bringing in more to your business. It is of great value to you when you build strong connection with a network of people whom you can enjoy a mutually beneficial relationship with. If you live by helping others, your business will be known as a brand that people can trust. 

Direct Selling Moms - 3 Tips To Focus

In a study conducted by the American Sociology Association (ASA), they found that working moms multitask more than their counterparts. They also found that the experience is more negative for moms.

The study found that moms multitask 10 hours more in a week compared to dads. When parents were asked about how multitasking made them feel, most moms said that the experience was negative for them, while dads saw it as a more positive experience. The study also found the discrepancy in multitasking activities among moms and dads. When moms multitask at home, they engage in childcare or housework activities. Dads, on the other hand, engage in activities like talking to a third person or self-care.

As working moms, we have a responsibility at home and at work. Most of the time work gets sacrificed because of the things we have to do for our family. When we are running our own business, all the more that we need to stay focused on our goals, and at the same time, our family.

Here are 3 tips on how to stay focused on your business, and at the same time, be happy with your life:

Time management – So little time, so much to do. The moment you wake up in the morning, your mind starts thinking about all the things you need to do for the day. In order to be productive, you need to get into the habit of managing your time properly. Use a planner or calendar and list down all the important things you need to do for the week. Then write down the small things, like grocery or laundry, school meeting, etc. Scheduling your time and strictly following it will let you stay on top of things.

With your busy schedule, you cannot rely on your mental notes alone. In fact that “mind clutter”, will often work against you. Get rid of it!  Once you get into the habit of reducing everything into writing and scheduling it for yourself, you will have a more organized week. Time budgeting is just or even more important than financial budgeting. It’s vital for you to know the “real time” it takes you to get tasks done.  Underestimating your time investment in tasks only leads to frustration and failure.

Your own home office – Setting up your own office will help you focus on your business. If you don’t have an extra room that you can use at home, at least find a spot that you can call your own. Once you find your spot, let your household know about it. Let your kids know that they can’t play with your computer or printer. Having your own office will give you freedom to do your work. If you can find the quietest spot in your house and set up your office there, all the better. This way you can concentrate on work when it’s time to do work.

Ask support from your family – having a family is about support and teamwork. The demands of life will always get to you but the battle will be worth it when you know you have your family’s support. Communicate with your husband and ask him if both of you can take turns in taking care of your children. Find ways on how you two can maximize your full potential both at work and at home. If you have teenage kids, communicate with them as well. Tell them about what you do so that they will understand. If you have your family’s support, it will be easier to juggle your time between your family and business.

There are no shortcuts to success. We have to make time for our family and business if we want to be successful in both. We have to stay focused on our business goals and at the same time be here for our family. Adopting time management practices will help us stay on top of things. This will increase our productivity and help us become more efficient. Setting up our own office at home also increases productivity and helps us focus on the things that we need to work on. And lastly, success is easier to achieve and tastes significantly sweeter when your family supports you all the way. 

Boundaries and Business can Co-Exist

­As businesses, we live by values and reputation. We want to be known as a brand who delivers. In a fast-paced market, we want to address everyone as much as we can. We say yes to every opportunity that comes our way and we gain a reputation as a brand that works hard and provides good customer service. Every business wants to be able to serve everyone, but when demands rise, we have to make sure that quality is not compromised. We also have to consider the fact that there are other things that we need to accomplish outside our business. If we are too accessible to our customers or those we work with, we won’t have time to accomplish those needs.

Boundaries may seem like a bad thing when it comes to business because we want to be accessible to everyone, and at the same time, give them what they need at the shortest possible time. However, when we are always accessible, we might not have enough time to accomplish quality work. We end up with so many things in our hands that need to be accomplished in a rush.

This is why we have to set up boundaries. Sooner or later, people will notice the decline in the quality of how we do business. To avoid this, we need to change our working habits. We need to adopt a more effective technique in dealing with high work demands.

Here are some tips on how you can meet your demands without compromising your personal time:

Let others know when you can accomplish a task – when people or customers approach you for a task, give them a deadline. Ask the latest time you can give them the task or let them know when you can finish the task. In doing so, your customers know when to expect the task instead of leaving them hanging. This will also prevent your customers from constantly following up on the task. When you give them a deadline, you are able to schedule your work. And because you have enough time to do it, you can make sure that the task you are going to deliver is of the highest quality.

Ask others when they can accomplish a task – this is the reverse of the first item. When you are working with others and you give them a task, ask when they can accomplish the task. This will give them some time to schedule their work and have time to accomplish the task that you need from them. This ensures that you receive good quality work and you won’t get disappointed when you receive their work. Also, get into the habit of giving someone a task ahead of time instead of giving someone a task and expecting immediate results. You don’t want to rush someone and receive a poorly accomplished task.

Schedule your tasks – if you can think of all the tasks that you need to do, schedule them. Schedule everything from the high priorities tasks to the least important ones. Once you have your schedule, make sure to commit to it. Increase your productivity by making sure you start and finish the tasks that you have on time. Following a schedule will help you concentrate and accomplish the work that you need to do. You are able to finish them in your own comfort. Even the small ones matter. Instead of constantly checking your inbox, voicemail, or text messages, dedicate a particular time during the day. Constantly checking mail or messages will only distract you from what you need to accomplish during that time.

When demands rise, we have to make sure that we stay on top of things that we need to do. We want to make sure that we are there for our customers but we can only do that when we are sure we can give them what they need. We have to make sure that we have enough time to accomplish the tasks they need from us. Creating a schedule and committing to it will let us see how we can address customer needs without compromising brand quality.

These simple tips will help you stay productive even when you constantly receive tasks. Once people see your working habits, they will respect your deadlines and your brand. When you put everything in a schedule, you are likely to get things done and you avoid getting interrupted by others. Accomplish your tasks and you will have enough time to do the things you need for personal matters. 

What Everybody Needs to Know About Protecting Their Time

With busy schedules and a variety of things to be done, it’s hard to go on without organizing our schedules on our calendars. If we want to be productive, we have to take the time to fix our schedules for the week or at least days in advance. Then we have to religiously follow it so we don’t waste any time. There are many ways on how we can organize our schedules. There are planners, organizers, smartphones, your Outlook calendar, and many more. Digital calendars like the ones on your smartphone or Outlook are gaining popularity because of syncing capabilities. It’s easier to access schedules without the need to carry a planner.

When we schedule activities in our calendars, our tendency is to write down meetings and important activities for the week, only. We forget that we also have to do other tasks that need our full attention. What you can do is “block time” for your own activities. Even the simple ones if you need to. This is your way of protecting your time, a way to accomplish things that you need to do and have more control of your time. If you’re using Outlook, it’s easier to block your time because others can see that you can’t be disturbed. Here are some of the advantages of protecting your time:

·         Less invitations to last minute meetings – with fast-paced work environments, meetings are unpredictable. You do one, then two, the next thing you know you are stuck in more meetings. When you are finally done, you are piled up with more work and less time to finish it. If you already blocked your time, others will know that you are not available and you will avoid getting last-minute meeting invitations.

·         Prevent others from stealing your time – the concept is similar with last-minute meetings. If people see that you’re already busy with something else, they won’t bother you. They’ll let you work on the things that you need to do. You’ll avoid being volunteered to help or show the new employee around, or help out with other tasks.

·         Time to get things done – because you already protected your time and made others aware that you are going to be busy most of the day, you have more time to get things done. You become more productive and you don’t waste time bumping off schedules for unexpected tasks and meetings.

Now that you have an idea of how protecting your time can help you become more productive and in control of your time, here are some good practices that you can start with.

·         When blocking your time, include everything that you think will need some time to finish. Even the simple ones like running an errand. You can also include personal tasks so that you don’t forget anything and avoid stressing yourself out later on.

·         Make sure that you use just one calendar. This will make it easier for you to see and plan out your activities. You can separate priorities for work/life in your calendar. Sticking to one calendar will help you organize and protect your time properly. This also guarantees that no activity is overlooked or goes overlapping.

·         Show no mercy! Schedule as much as you can. Get into the habit of scheduling more than 50% of your time or more, in a day. This will keep you focused on the things that you need to do. Even if it includes the simple tasks and personal ones. At least you already get a clear idea of how you are going to spend your day. Making you more productive without wasting time on thinking about the next thing you are suppose to do.

Managing your time is important and protecting it will help you be more productive. With busy schedules, we tend to get things mixed up or sometimes forget about the things that we need to do. When we protect our time by putting down all our activities in a day or week, we are preventing others from taking our time and we are preventing ourselves from being distracted.

Protecting our time is important because it is too valuable to be wasted. Before we realize that we’ve already wasted most of our day, it would be too late and the next thing you know you are already running late to your next appointment. Start your week by blocking your time. Make use of just one calendar and schedule everything you need to do for the week. Then work on your daily schedule and do your best to religiously follow it.

Failure to Communicate

Here's an example of poor communication skills. On route 95 just south of Fredericksburg, Virginia, I pulled off the road at a rest stop. As I walked up the path on the way to liberating the Diet Coke I bought in Bealeton, I saw a display in front of the bathroom that spelled out “LOVE” in large white letters. No wonder George Michael got in trouble at a rest stop. What kind of message is this? What kind of behavior is the state of Virginia encouraging by the side of an interstate. Wouldn't a better message have been “LEAK”? As in take one here.

Effective communication is conveying or receiving information in the most efficient manner. The sign outside the rest stop fails the efficiency test – not to mention the laugh test. Our objective is to transfer meaningful information between people. There are three methods of business communication: in person meetings, telephone communication, and e-mail or electronic communication. Of the three methods, how do you decide which medium is appropriate for your message? Deciding on the medium requires an evaluation of a number of criteria. Those criteria are time sensitivity or immediacy, volume of information, and the degree of interaction necessary. Let's evaluate each of the communication methods.

You might notice one obvious criterion I didn't include in the list – impersonality. I hate to go all age discrimination on you, but our children and grandchildren just don't believe electronic communications, like texting, are impersonal. Go back to when the telephone was just becoming ubiquitous. Our grandparents griped that the telephone was removing the personal touch from communications. Now our parents, and some of us, complain that e-mail is impersonal. Our children disagree. They'll text close friends before calling. You can't get much more intimate than sexting. I'm not recommending sexting, unless you're really cute and younger then thirty. Then my number is …. In reality, I'm not that attracted to twenty-somethings. What would we talk about afterward, if you get my drift. To date, my mid-life crisis has included neither a Corvette nor a blond twenty-something. If you have a suggestion for my mid-life crisis, let me know.

In person meetings are the ultimate in immediacy. You can exchange information on a real time basis. There is constant interaction and you can convey meaning not only verbally but by body language and non-verbal cues. I pretty much insist on meeting new clients in person. I read potential clients to determine if we're a good fit. Do I get the feeling they are honest? Do they ask me how aggressive I am? Here's a hint for you. CPA's all know the meaning of the aggressive question. What it really means is, “Will you cheat for me and not let me know? So I can deny it later.” Aggressive is code for cheat.

While meetings are extremely efficient for exchanging information, they are not at all time efficient. For a meeting to work, first of all, the participants have to be available at the same time. They also have to prepare the information to be exchanged in advance. If one participant isn't prepared for a subject or line of conversation, the meeting becomes inefficient or fails. Meetings are only good for exchanging information known by all the participants at the time of the meeting. If the meeting goes down an unexpected path, for which no one is prepared, the information exchange dies.

For example, during a tax meeting, if I find out a client has started a new business and I have no chance to ask for the business income and expenses in advance, the meeting fails. We are not able to exchange all the information necessary to complete the tax return. Much of the meeting is wasted.

Telephone calls have some of the same advantages of meetings. Information exchange is immediate. The volume of information that can be exchanged is similar. The key advantage telephone calls have over meetings is geographical. The participants don't have to be located in the same place at the same time. Unfortunately, they do all have to be available at the same time – thus the term phone tag.

A key, and regularly overlooked, similarity with in-person meetings is the necessity of advance preparation for an effective telephone call. I refer to telephone calls as ambush meetings. One side has an agenda for which the other side is ignorant and unprepared. Here is how conversations unwind with tax clients, who insist on only telephone contact.

First, three rounds of phone tag. Then...

Me - “Jack, I have some questions for your tax returns.”

Jack - “Fire away, Frank.”

Me - “How much did you pay in personal property taxes on your car last year?”

Jack - “Well Frank, I am in my car circling the beltway. How can you expect me to have that number handy? I'll have to call you back from a land line.”

After three more rounds of phone tag, I might get my answer. Telephone calls are horribly time inefficient. They are the black holes of time management. Before e-mail, our practice spent one third more time preparing half of the tax returns we prepare now. The reason is communication efficiency. This past week, I have had five phone conversations with three brothers, and I still don't have one bit of information with which to prepare their tax returns.

Telephones are moron machines. They encourage the illusion of working as opposed to actually getting work done. For a few years, I had a client in the environmental consulting industry, who was an action junkie. He spent all day every day on the telephone. He described every call as urgent and very important, excusing himself from meetings to take calls from God knows who. After ten years in business, he was barely able to take even a small salary, and the company continued to borrow to stay operating. All of that urgency and action, and nothing important ever got accomplished.

The next time you reach for the moron maker, ask yourself the following:

                         1. What information am I trying to obtain or convey?
                         2. Is the exchange of that information really time sensitive?
                         3. When I reach the other party, will he be prepared to give or receive
                             the information I am trying to exchange?

If you can't answer yes to #2 and #3, step away from that cell phone. Using a cell phone in public used to be a sign of status. Now it is a pathetic statement that every time the boss man calls, you jump. Yes massah. If you are in sales, you can pretty much ignore all of the above rant. The telephone is your life – better yours than mine.

Electronic communications, like e-mail and texting, solve the problem of participants all being available at the same time. However, the solution comes at the price of immediacy. With e-mail, you have no idea if the other side is listening. E-mail would be a horrible medium for a 9-1-1 emergency service. Imagine e-mailing an ambulance service that you're having a heart attack.

On the other hand, electronic communications allow each side to prepare for an information exchange. If I ask a client for the amount of personal property taxes he paid, the answer doesn't have to be immediate.

There are three main reasons I prefer to ask tax return questions electronically. The first is the time savings from not playing phone tag. The second is that telephone conversations encourage off the cuff and incomplete answers. With electronic communications, clients don't feel the time pressure to answer immediately. They have the time to research and provide complete answers. The third reason is a CYA reason. I get answers in writing. People have short memories when the IRS calls. They don't remember telling me they only use their Porsche for business, or that their girlfriend's rent was really for the business. Paul and I have decided that we will only accept certain pieces of information in writing, such as car mileage and estimated tax payments, the former because people lie, and the latter because people just don't know what they paid and don't want to bother looking it up.

There is a another benefit to having communications in writing. People tend to mute their emotions when they know they are being recorded for posterity by e-mail servers all across the globe. However, I was once a witness in a lawsuit, where the two sides actually wished death upon each other in e-mail messages. So that doesn't work on everyone.

There is another disadvantage to electronic communications. There is no immediate back and forth. With e-mail, if there are follow up questions based on a first set of answers, another round of messages is required. Paul and I have a rule for electronic tax return questions. We allow two rounds of electronic communications. After that, it's time to pick up the phone.

Selecting the proper communications medium is critical to your business success as it directly affects your productivity and even your quality of life. There is no right method to use or reject entirely. Realistically, you need an intelligent balance of meetings, phone calls, and electronic messages. Searching for that balance even affects your customer selection. Customers, who take an inordinate amount of your time, are less profitable. You should consider evaluating customer and vendor relationships based on your ability to manage their communications. There are some rare occasions when we have to part ways with clients who suck up more time than their circumstances warrant.

I'll leave you with one more communications hint that is apparently not common knowledge. If you want someone's rapt attention, don't contact him on a Monday or a Friday. People don't pay close attention on Mondays because they are overwhelmed by the volume they receive at the beginning of a week. If you need a favor, wait to ask until Tuesday. On Fridays, people's minds are already in weekend mode. They deal with issues on a superficial level to get out the door for happy hour. Calling on a Friday means you'll either get a bad answer or no answer at all.

Thanks for reading. For serious business advice and information, visit our main web site at www.skcpas.com.

Does Your Picture Really Capture Your Brand?

Social media can help our brand make a good impression if we do it right. Part of making a good impression is choosing the right profile picture for our accounts. When people visit our profiles, the first thing that they notice is our picture. This picture can either lure them to know more about us or simply close the window and move on.

Profile pictures matter because it should reflect who we are and people are likely to be drawn to our profiles when we have the right picture there. According to a study on Facebook, the most clicked part of a Facebook page is the profile picture. When our audience goes on our page and clicks on our picture, we want to make an impression that is aligned to our brand. How do we know it’s the right picture for our brand?

Here are some tips on how you can do it right.

Smile – when you are smiling in your profile picture, your audience will get the impression of happiness. It could give a pitch that says you are happy and they will be too with your brand. It could also lead to better social relationships because your audience sees that you are approachable.

Body language is one way for people to read you. People can either see you as open or closed just by how you pose. For example, folded arms and closed hands mean that you are not open. A trick to show openness to your audience is to open your mouth a bit when you smile.

Babies, cartoons and pets – because you are using social media for your business, it’s best to avoid using pictures of anyone but you. Don’t use your baby’s picture, your pets or a cartoon version of yourself because there’s a big possibility that your audience will not take you seriously.

No logos – using your brand logo may seem like a great idea but people are more drawn to connect with people than logos. So avoid using your brand logo as your profile picture. However, you can try to include your brand logo in your picture like wear your brand’s color, use it as a background, mini-logo in the corner, or portray your brand.

Same applies to QR codes. QR codes are good for your website if you want to direct others to your content but it’s not going to work as a profile picture. You want people to remember your face as a brand and not as a QR code.

Stand out with bright backgrounds – personal branding is about standing out from the rest and one way to do that is to use bright backgrounds. Try experimenting with different bright colors and see which ones look good and effective for your brand. Rand Fishkin, founder of SEOmoz and web research mastermind did exactly this and said that orange works well for him and earned him more Twitter followers compared to other colors.

Where you look and what it means – looking straight to the camera will look like you are making direct eye contact with your audience. It seems like you are talking to them and that they have your full attention. It’s a good way to make direct contact with your audience.

Studies also show that your audience will look at the area where you’re facing in your picture. If your face is looking to the right, your audience will look at that area. It’s the same if you are looking to your left, up or down. You can strategically look at your left if you want an audience you go through your tweets.

Stick with your picture for long periods – part of being consistent is to keep your profile picture on for months at a time. Changing it every week or every month will only confuse your audience. You have to give it some time for your image to stick before changing it. Some are even dependent on profile pictures. They search for the image instead of looking for the name because it is easier to remember.

There are different ways on how to make our profile pictures work for our brand. Think about your brand and your goals, and then capture that image you want your audience to see. Once you have an idea, hire a professional photographer to take your photos.  It’s a good investment.  You only have one time to make a good first impression.

Double your SME marketing effectiveness

SMEs need so much help: with growth, strategic guidance, accounting support, management efficiency, procurement, IT, marketing communications, and employee management and motivation. Yet most entrepreneurs can only afford so much help at a time.

That suggests an easy strategy: If you provide one of the above services, you could partner with a company selling some of that other expertise. Together, you share leads, you can serve each SME more efficiently, and you'll likely get a bigger share of their dollar than you would otherwise get. The fact that you can connect them with a trusted, effective provider will also be appreciated; you've saved them research and decision time, thus helping them move ahead further and faster – which will help cement your status as a trusted provider of value-add.

This happens all the time, of course, when a local accountant recommends a business lawyer, and vice-versa; it's win-win. It happens less often at the national brand level, but that’s more a failure of marketing moxie than anything else: Scotiabank has a successful alliance with the CFIB, for instance, and RBC and Google teamed up last year to encourage more small business to go online.

Business owners are cautious buyers for many reasons: resources are usually tight, they are picky about finding the right solution, and the cost of failure (in time and opportunity lost, as well as cash itself) can be crippling.

Double your credibility with business owners by teaming up with other reputable sales organizations and service providers to create client savings and synergies. Make sure you share similar values with your partners, and offer comparable value propositions. (Lexus, for instance, might not care to hook up with an “everyman” service like Google to offer free web hosting – but why not explore opportunities with an upscale business hotel chain?)

If you make life easier for business owners, by helping them source the deals they are looking for, and saving them the trouble of tracking down other best-in-class providers – they’ll respect you as caring partners. And they’ll stick with you through thick and thin.