You know that feeling you get when you start a new job? The one where you feel so excited? You can’t wait to show up and get started? You have all of these ideas about all of the amazing things you will accomplish because this is it. This is the job you’ve been looking for. This is based on an association. We think the thoughts about the new job and the feelings follow. I know this is true (not a matter of opinion) because I can feel the feelings again by just writing this. I can also think back to the last time I actually started a new job, or when I started my company and feel those same feelings again. So the thought of starting a new job brings about the feeling even when I am not actually starting a new job. When I started my company what was different was that I didn’t lose that feeling after 90 days. Why? I renew the feeling every single day by thinking about all of the things I want to accomplish. I could have done this at a job as well. The difference is in the perspective. I make a conscious choice each day and sometimes from minute to minute. Do I want to think about the things that bother or worry me, or do I want to think about the next great thing that is going to happen for me? I’ve found when I think about the next great thing that is going to happen for me I just feel so much better all day. Things don’t bother me anymore – they’re just challenges from which I can learn and grow. These challenges make the journey that much more fulfilling especially as I reach various milestones in my journey. Life is good when I think it is good. It’s really that simple.
Tags: accomplish, challenges, conscious choice, excitement, feelings, great thing, grow, learn, new job, perspective, thoughts
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Communicating with your customers
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Our Message
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How many times have you walked into a store and felt like no one wanted to help you? It is my firm belief that you can have a lousy product or service but if you have good communication with your clients and prospects you will still thrive over the companies who have a superior product or service and don’t communicate well. It’s just like in our personal relationships. When someone get’s cocky they start to feel as if they don’t need to reach out to people - that people should just come to them. Usually those people end up being lonely in the long run. The answer is in staying hungry to communicate with your customers and prospects. Constantly wanting to know what they are looking for and then finding ways to provide it. Let them know you care. I believe that even if you offer that inferior product or service, you will fix that quickly if you communicate well with your customers & prospects. How? If you listen to what they want and need you will by default improve your product or service specifically around your client & prospects’ needs. Try sending out a survey to your clients (offer an incentive to fill it out). In that survey ask them to indicate what they might like to see you offer in the future. Then follow that up with questions directed at what they might like to pay for those services. When you get that survey back, what you will have is focused data that tells you exactly what people want to buy from you and exactly what they want to pay for it. Simple yet powerful. Take ours here and we’ll give you 1 free hour of online training.
One of the reasons I knew I could do well when I started Nerd Enterprises is that I knew that I could communicate with people. Furthermore I knew that I had so many poor customer service experiences that all I had to do to succeed was provide really good customer service. It works!
I think we are seeing a big shift in the economy away from big business and towards smaller businesses. One of the reasons I think this is happening is that smaller businesses now have a better opportunity to communicate directly with their customers and potential customers. Moreover we can get direct feedback using the social media - web 2.0. How does this work? It’s simple really - you set up your accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, Plaxo, and a number of others and you put messages out there for people to read. You give them some information about who you are and what you do. Through these mediums people can respond, ask questions, and give you direct feedback about what they want. Then it is up to you to fill that need. I don’t believe bigger businesses have the same opportunity to do this. Even if they hire people to act as ‘reps’ for this purpose, those ‘reps’ will lack the authority to be able to make decisions about what to offer and how to offer it. With small businesses you are communicating directly with the owner (like me) or someone very close to that. Don’t get me wrong - I read an article this morning explaining that Dell Computer has made millions using Twitter to offer promotions, so big business has their place in social media. The trick is to offer something people can really use - free information, or samples of your product. Let them try it. This is what I do with my web casts. You can watch short video tutorials and then if you like what you see there are full length tutorials in our learning center for prices ranging from $10 - $50 depending on the content and length.
Case in point - I want to offer people the opportunity to ask me questions about QuickBooks & Excel free of charge! Why? Because I am sure that once you get an idea of how helpful I can be you are going to want to either download one of my classes or hire me for direct one on one training. So I’ve created 2 blogs (separate from the one already in our website) for this very purpose. One is on QuickBooks, and the other on MS Excel. The QuickBooks Blog already has some life in it, so go ahead and feel free to read and post your questions. The Excel Blog is brand new and you can help get it started by posting a question. If your question pertains to something having to do with using both QuickBooks & MS Excel hand in hand, feel free to post on either or both. Take our poll on our QuickBooks Blog and let us know what we can help you with more specifically.
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This month’s checklist
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Now available: the whole check list for the year. Updates will be posted, so save the link and download it each month when I send these newsletters out:
http://www.nerdenterprises.com/Client_Files/Client_Checklist.xls
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A little bit about me
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I moved to California when I was 28 and I barely had the clothes on my back when I got here. In fact I barely got here. One of my first job experiences here was a temp job I had working for a hedge fund in Santa Monica. I couldn’t afford to go out to lunch, so I would bring my little brown bag lunch. The two people I worked with who ran this office would sometimes go out and they told me it was their policy not to leave a “non-permanent” employee alone in their office. They were afraid I might steal all of their important documents. Or maybe just a really cool looking paper clip! So they would lock me out at lunch time and I would sit on the steps of the office building on the corner of 5th and Santa Monica with my brown bag lunch. Sometimes I would bring something to heat up but I would forget to heat it up before they were going, so I had to wait for them to come back.
That was about 10 years ago. Today I run a successful business, and have employees and many clients who depend on me to guide them financially. In the process they have come to depend on me to stay very organized and they often seem to be impressed with my technical knowledge as well.
So why am I mentioning this, and why here? You can benefit from my experience. Ask me questions and I will answer them. How do you build a company from nothing? I can speak to this. How do you get and stay organized enough to get a business off the ground and build it? I can speak to this. What software programs do you use and how do you use them? I can definitely speak to this.
So ask me any questions and if I am inspired enough by them, I will even use it as the basis for one of my web casts.
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Every time I stop to do something, if I first stop and think about how everything I am doing should come from a starting point of wanting to make the world a better place, the outcome will always be much better. Much better!
When things don’t go my way, or I don’t get what I expect I can either get upset or find a way to use the time to my advantage. So if someone fails to show up to a meeting, can I hold the meeting without that person? In other words, can I go over the material on my own and get something accomplished that way? If a friend cancels plans at the last minute, can I carry on regardless, or change my plans to do something I’ve wanted to do on my own? I find that when I do this, I find no reason to be upset or disappointed, but instead I embrace the opportunity to change my plan. This feels a lot better than getting angry about someone not showing up. In fact I feel relieved that I got to do something I’ve wanted to do but haven’t had the time.
This moment right now is the best thing I’ve got. Depending what I do with it, I will either take myself into another great moment, or not. The choice is entirely mine – that’s the beauty of it – only I can take myself down any path I want to walk on.
We have a new QuickBooks class in our learning center – QuickBooks Tips & Tricks.
This is a GREAT download whether you are new to QuickBooks or a veteran!
If you ever feel like people are walking out of your life, think of all of the new people you will now get to meet, and of all of the opportunities that have yet to come your way.
I will not be available by phone or e-mail all day. Please post a comment here and I will get back with you tomorrow.
OK normally I avoid politics as much as possible, but I had to touch on this one. My personal feeling is let it go, they need to be able to go out and enjoy themselves and because they are who they are they cannot use conventional travel methods like you and me. Are they supposed to stay locked up in the Whitehouse for the next 4-8 years? If people spent half as much energy all week worrying about themselves as they’ve spent today worrying about the Obama’s their own situations would probably improve dramatically. This is the problem we face – everybody is so busy pointing their fingers at others that they don’t focus on themselves and then they wonder why nothing changes! You can’t change someone else so you may as well focus on the one thing you can change.. YOU!
Love you all no matter what you think!
It’s my choice. I can let the world lead me where it will take me, or I can create the world I want to live in. All I have to do is visualize what I want to be surrounded with and with greater passion these things come to pass more quickly. I speak from experience on this. I can’t explain how it happens, all I can say is that everything I have ever wanted has come to pass for me and as that happens, the nature of the things I want changes. That used to translate to a feeling of not being satisfied until I realized I have always gotten what asked for. Even when I didn’t realize I was asking for it. So now it translates to a deep sense of gratitude and an incredible feeling of excitement. I love to write because I have so many thoughts and ideas – an overactive mind if you will and writing helps me get these ideas out. So for some reason, even though it has been right in front of me for the longest time, I just discovered and awoke a passion that has been inside of me for a long long time. Blogging. Yes I’ve had this blog and now I have several others, but my mind is now overflowing with more ideas for just how to use them and what to do with them.
Create your world
This tip will help you on many levels.
Every 2 hours take a 15 minute break and have a light snack. It should be something healthy like a yogurt or fruit. Then go for a walk outside.
The day will go by faster especially because it gives you something to look forward to. Also by eating something every 2 hours you are speeding up your metabolism (this is especially good if you are looking to improve your physical condition).
Don’t worry about your boss. By doing this you come back more refreshed which means you are working at more of a full capacity throughout the whole day. Don’t distract others when you do this.
http://www.nerdenterprises.com/Steps_To_Success/Steps%20To%20Success%20for%20Bookkeepers.htm
Steps To Success For Bookkeepers (and other financial professionals)
This is a 4 hour webinar on Saturday August 1 from 11 am - 3 pm. Register Today the link above will give youa 2 minute demonstration of what this webinar is all about. You can register from there.
Tags: Accounting & Bookkeeping, bookkkeeping, Credit, Debit, double entry bookkeeping, earn more, learn, QuickBooks
I like to start off every day with thoughts of gratitude. So I start with thoughts of everything that I have, that I want – a great place to live (or even just a place to live), a great family (or great people in my life that I choose to surround myself with), and great opportunities created because I put myself out there and took action. Then I can think of the things that I have lost which have helped free me up for what came next, or otherwise taught me something important about my experience in this universe. Lastly I can think of the things I still have – the things that weren’t taken away from me – the things that cannot be taken from me – my character, the part of me that I can work every day to improve no matter what anyone else does or says.
Once I have gone through this process I am in a much better position to start my day. I can start off by projecting about what a great day it will be. At this point I have just laid the foundation for an amazing day and I didn’t even have to get out of bed to do it J.
I saw this tip on YouTube in a video from Jack Canfield. We should take time at night before we go to sleep and think about what we are going to do the next day. This leaves the thougts in our minds swimming around as we drift into sleep and then the creative side of our brains kicks in and works on those ideas. We don’t even realize why, but we wake up inspired and approach the days tasks with this unexplained creative energy. Try it, it works.
Tags: plan day, Productivity tips, reviewing schedule
Answering phones & replying to e-mail.
There are of course certain instances where an immediate response is necessary and appropriate. For most situations, however I find that the following is a great way to ensure timely response as well as maximum efficiency. What you don’t want to do is stop what you are working on every time an e-mail comes in or the phone rings. You will never get anything done. I used to have my MS Outlook set to “Send/Receive” every 3 minutes because I never wanted to miss anything. Now I have it set for every 15 minutes. I also listen to my voice mails 1st thing each morning – my cell phone and my office phone. I take notes as I listen and then delete the message. Then I set aside an hour at some point in the day to call people back. I just go down the list and call people. This way when I am talking to them they are not a frustrating distraction (which they can most likely hear in my voice when I am talking to them if they’ve interrupted me), instead they are a welcomed break in my day and I am able to be of maximum service to them in this way. Having this kind of approach will not only increase my own efficiently it will likely bring me more business because people will not be afraid to call me when they need something. When someone calls me who needs something this usually translates to more business for me. And this is good.
PS If need be, actually create an appointment in your calendar for call backs at 1pm. Then you can copy and paste your voice mail notes into the notes portion of the calendar appointment. Then it is all there for you to take notes while you are on the phone when you do call people back. This kind of organization has allowed me to really grow my business.
I moved to California when I was 28 and I barely had the clothes on my back when I got here. In fact I barely got here. One of my first job experiences here was a temp job I had working for a hedge fund in Santa Monica. I couldn’t afford to go out to lunch, so I would bring my little brown bag lunch. The two people I worked with who ran this office would sometimes go out and they told me it was their policy not to leave a “non-permanent” employee alone in their office. They were afraid I might steal all of their important documents. Or maybe just a really cool looking paper clip! So they would lock me out at lunch time and I would sit on the steps of the office building on the corner of 5th and Santa Monica with my brown bag lunch. Sometimes I would bring something to heat up but I would forget to heat it up before they were going, so I had to wait for them to come back.
That was about 10 years ago. Today I run a successful business, and have employees and many clients who depend on me to guide them financially. In the process they have come to depend on me to stay very organized and they often seem to be impressed with my technical knowledge as well.
So why am I mentioning this, and why here? You can benefit from my experience. Ask me questions and I will answer them. How do you build a company from nothing? I can speak to this. How do you get and stay organized enough to get a business off the ground and build it? I can speak to this. What software programs do you use and how do you use them? I can definitely speak to this.
So ask me any questions and if I am inspired enough by them, I will even use it as the basis for one of my web casts.
We have a new blog dedicated 100% to QuickBooks help, QuickBooks Tutorials, and QuickBooks Services.
Visit www.theqbw.com and I’ve already posted a couple of articles. Be sure and read “The Revenue Cycle”
Post comments and questions and get direct feedback there. Please let us know what you think and what you would like.
Here are this week’s available Appointments for private training in QuickBooks, Microsoft Excel, or any other topic you would like.
Sometimes I find myself in a situation where I feel inclined to get frustrated. Clients aren’t paying me fast enough and generally I am not getting what I want when I want it. It’s that inner child Freudian ego kicking in. I change myself to meet the conditions by first recognizing that everything is exactly as it should be. Then I start to think in terms of what can I do with the situation. Let’s say for example I find I am short on money this month. I have 2 choices. I can worry about money to the point of self destruction, or what I have done which has worked really well is to say, OK this just means it’s time to relax at home more. If I can’t go out and spend money then I should by all means stay home and really enjoy what I have instead of going out to get new things!
Life’s Good!
