February 8, 2010
One of the greatest ways to meet fascinating people is through volunteering. Besides the great effect that volunteering has on the community that you live in, you can develop real and long lasting relationships with the people on committees and boards.
The fact of the matter is people to business with people. If you can hang out with other individuals that you have a volunteer initiative in common with and are passionate about, a lot of fantastic things can happen. You strengthen your community, building strong relationships and on the side you probably will find that you will use the services of some of the people you have gotten to know and visa versa.
There is a podcast dedicated to this topic that has just been launched located at http://www.otterideas.com/podcasts. So if you were thinking of ways to expand your reach and give back to your community, this podcast is for you.
December 16, 2009
I wanted to let you know that we have posted another podcast to our subscription service.
This one is an interview with David Connell from D L Connell Enterprises and he shares with us some of the basics that you need to keep in mind if you’re thinking of taking your business this route.
Topics include:
- How do I arrange shipping a product from an overseas provider?
- How do I negotiate pricing with a freight company or customs broker?
- How do I find out about things like tariff classifications and duty rates?
- How do I export goods into the USA?
If you are a member, check it out at www.otterideas.com/podcasts or if this topic is of interested to you sign up today!
December 14, 2009
It’s that time of year when people’s thoughts turn to spiced eggnog, holiday cheer and family.
From a business stand point many entrepreneurs are wrapping up their fiscal year.
This is a special time for business owners and I often find that it doesn’t get the kind of attention that it deserves.
I suppose if you planned appropriately you would have done your 2009 goal review and goal setting for 2010 well before this, however if you have been run off your feet and just haven’t found the time, perhaps over the holiday season you can take a few moments to yourself to reflect on the past year and the year ahead.
This is the time of year that I like best as I get to assess my checks and balances and see how the year really did unfold. Throughout the year I paid very close attention to my goals and put action plans into place to achieve them. Now I can kick back and review the fruits of my labours. Naturally there will be items that I will not have achieved 100%. I’m ok with that. I know that I’m not perfect and that there are only 24 hours in a day.
This is the time where I want to celebrate my successes – both small and large. I want to show my appreciation for the people and organizations that made my successes easier and more fulfilling. I think it is vitally important that no matter what you have achieved you need to pat yourself on the back and acknowledge your efforts to grow your business.
This kind of celebration is overlooked as business owners will focus on what they haven’t managed to achieve. It’s kind of the glass 1/2 full versus 1/2 empty syndrome.
I was speaking with business associates of mine and they were sharing their thoughts with me about how their year went. They had set a very high revenue goal for themselves and unfortunately didn’t achieve it. They wanted to grow their revenue by 40% this year. Sadly they only grew it by 30%. Given the economy this year, I was astounded that their business grew even that much. Inevitably I asked them ”Ok so what have you done to celebrate your success?”
These individuals worked very hard this year. Grew their revenue stream by a large amount and thought that they didn’t deserve to celebrate because they missed the mark.
Celebrate all the things that you did well in your business. Reward yourself for the successes – big or small. Give yourself permission to feel proud of your accomplishments and know that even if you miss the target on your ultimate goals that you set for yourself you still have accomplished something and need to celebrate your efforts.
Believe me this makes the business adventure that much more fun. It’s positive reinforcement for you and will keep you motivated to strive and achieve more in the year to come.
December 7, 2009
Are you a business that runs events from time to time? I have just test driven a very nice web based events tool and online registration system.
Ok, so it doesn’t link directly into your site with your look and feel but it can fully function as a stand alone web site for a specific event that you are running.
Something on (http://www.somethingon.com/) is the site that was recommended to me by Erica Brandl, a business associate of mine.
I found this tool very user friendly and easy to set up. I wanted to have the ability to collect online registration and payment for my “Networking for Business” seminar and this tool was perfect for it. I didn’t even use half of the functionality that it comes with.
I opted for the free version which means that in about 5 days my event registration will have a few google ads around the event details and registration but it really don’t be that cluttered.
What I loved best about this tool is that I could place images, text and such on the home page to brand my company and introduce the course and then have people go to the registration page.
Online payments are done with credit card through paypal so you need to have a paypal business account for this feature to work. A paypal business account is easy to set up and is free which is another great small business tool to have.
The rest of the features including having speaker pages, giving details about the venue, posting announcements, the event menu if there is one. You can run surveys from this tool as well.
It took me about 1.5 hours to get signed up and load up all the seminar details that I wanted there. The next time around will be much simpler and faster.
I really think this is a great tool for small business owners that are looking for ways to automate event registration without the massive programming cost.
There comes a time when your business can afford to have custom events registrations and there are even more options when it comes to these tools but if you’re just starting out, this is a great option.
