BizCoachDeb's BizBuzz -

Archive for October, 2008

First, I’m not a financial advisor, but feel like I simply must share a bit of information with homeowners out there. Maybe it’s because I think about folks feeling like they have so little control over their own money these days, or maybe it’s just my way of saying, “It’s your money, put it to work!” Having worked in the real estate industry for many years, I often saw people escrow their tax and insurance payments. Break this down for a moment: if you have an escrow account, you pay extra each month to have someone else send payments to your property taxing authority, plus, they send your payment for your homeowner’s insurance. In between, what is that money doing? It’s pooled with other people’s escrow accounts and earning amazing amounts of interest, but not for YOU. Instead, the managing entity has tons of these payments sitting in accounts, building interest for their company. It’s not illegal, it’s not even immoral, it’s just not working hard for you.   The rest of the story...

Sometimes I wonder if businesses complicate things on purpose, or if they are just too harried to see the simple, client-centered solutions they could be using to make their customers feel cared for. It’s not really a magic ball, but putting yourself in the place of your customer allows you to serve them in ways that offer them greater benefit, plus provide you with higher customer retention. I’ll share three scenarios where a company got a little off track, and offer a solution after each that can help better control resources, make a client happy, and make you just a bit more intuitive where their care is concerned.

Scenario 1: Recently I received instructions for some steps I needed to follow to set up a new web marketing app I’m testing – the instructions arrived via email and had a “.docx” extension – I’d never heard of this extension, but apparently it’s some sort of XML dealy. So, what if I’m not a 2007 Word user (which I’m not, I use OpenOffice) and what if I’m not as computer literate as some? In this case, it didn’t open on the first or second try, so after downloading some things, I finally got it to open. BUT, what a waste of time, 40 minutes, to be exact.   The rest of the story...

Am I Late?

First, just to be clear, this isn’t about beer, it’s about running your business meetings more efficiently so you can get on with actual work. Don’t get me wrong, meetings have a function in business, but most would agree that too many minutes of a day are wasted sitting in a room or on the phone addressing things that might be better handled in a less obtrusive way. Ever hear of the “Meeting Cow?” If not, get yourself a copy of the book Sacred Cows Make the Best Burgers by Robert Kriegal and David Brandt. You’ll quickly understand why some really want to sit in meetings, while the rest of us don’t.

Be Prepared: It seems a simple enough concept, but how many times have you arrived at a meeting only to find no agenda and no expected timeframe for completion? Don’t let this be you; instead, be proactive and prepare an outline of questions that will be addressed to each person, so participants come prepared with answers. Also, you should have a timeline and agenda mapped out so people are aware ahead of time how much time they’ll get to present their portion. A simple outline could be:   The rest of the story...

For this Blog Action Day post, I decided to explore a bit of the poverty that flourishes right here in my own country. Being the “richest” (I use this term loosely, as we are swimming in trillions of dollars of debt right at the moment) nation in the world, it’s hard to fathom our own citizens being unable to enjoy seemingly ordinary things like education, healthcare, clothing, or even food. According to the 2007 Census Bureau numbers, in 2007, 37.3 million people were in poverty, up from 36.5 million in 2006. Certainly that number can be expected to climb, given our current economic situation. When you look at these figures, what pops into my mind is that common airplane speech we get at the beginning of a flight: “Help yourself, then help the others around you.” It makes sense in this case, too.   The rest of the story...

My Daugher with Cammi Granato

This past weekend, Cammi Granato was inducted into the USA Hockey Hall of Fame, along with Mike Richter, Brian Leetch and Brett Hull. If you don’t follow hockey, these names might mean little to you, but that’s okay, I’ll cut you a break and get right to the meat of this post. During her whirlwind tour around the Denver Metro this past week, Cammi took part in a hockey event at the Apex, home to the Arvada Girls Hockey program. In attendance were numerous girls from all over the metro, skating, eating, and laughing. One would not really be thinking of marketing in such a setting, but the business person in me could not help but think about it.   The rest of the story...