Archive for Running Your Business

Feb
29

Financial: Tips for Getting Clients and Customers to Pay Their Past Due Bills

by Contributing Author: Paula Langguth Ryan, Strategic Financial Consultant

Ever have a client fail to pay a bill? I once actually had a bankruptcy attorney order a large book order and then go bankrupt! Now, most clients and customers who are late on payments aren’t going to go bankrupt on you. But they may be having challenges that are preventing them from paying.

The WORST thing you can do is to constantly hound your clients. Yes, them not paying maybe affecting your ability to pay your bills. But pressuring them to pay you so you aren’t worried about paying your bills doesn’t create an incentive for them.

The truth is, your clients and customers WANT to pay you. So the trick is to figure out ways that they can do so that are win-win-win. My father owned a construction company. He arranged payment in barter whenever a client was short on cash. We got a wonderful school-quality playground set that way. My father even got paid nearly twice what a job was worth when someone gave him a boat in payment, which he then turned around and sold to generate the cash he needed for paying the bills. I once got a BMW Z3 in payment for work I’d done. Which worked out wonderfully, since I was in the market for a new car!

Instead of pressuring your clients to come up with a big lump sum, be willing to take weekly or monthly payments of even as little as $5 or $10, set up in an systematic way. When you do this, you free up both of you to work on building your businesses rather than scrambling to pay creditors.

Please leave a comment below if you would like to share your challenges or successes with getting clients to pay their bill – we’d love to hear from you!

***

Paula Langguth Ryan is a mediation and marketing maven, specializing in financial issues for small businesses. She’s the creator of the Supersonic Prosperity Oriented Copywriting System http://www.paulalangguthryan.com/shop/supersonic-copywriting/ and provides strategic financial consulting services to small business owners. She’s also the author of Bounce Back From Bankruptcy: A Step-By-Step Guide to Getting Back on Your Financial Feet and the forthcoming Break the Debt Cycle – For Good! You can follow her on Twitter at copytamer and get free resources at www.paulalangguthryan.com. If you need help or assist please email us at info@kickstartwebsites.com.

Categories : Finances, Running Your Business

Feb
28

Getting Organized: Ten Tips for Cleaning Off Your Desk

by Janet L. Hall, Web Trainer/Developer

Ten Tips for Cleaning Off Your Desk and Keeping it Clean!

Disorganized and Messy Desk

On July 15, 1993 Walter S. Mossberg, the author and creator of the weekly “Personal Technology” column in The Wall Street Journal, was quoted as saying: “The promise of the ‘paperless office,’ [and home] where documents are entirely created, distributed, read and stored on computers, has been about as reliable as the promise of a check in the mail.”

Now, over a decade later, that statement is as true as it was then and possibly even worse! Many still have the mind set that everything that is on their computer must also be printed out, never of course to be seen again! You WILL have paperwork, in some form or another, until you die. It’s a fact, a part of life that will not go away. The truth is you will continue to have piles and junk cluttering your desk unless you take control of the situation and learn how to handle everything that lands on your desk.

Take a second and look at your desk, your countertop, dining room table, or what ever you call your desk or workspace. How much of your desktop can you actually see
and use? Do you even know what’s in those piles? Does it look like something might be starting to “grow” from all the yester-years of lunches, snacks, and dinners you’ve had there? Do you have so many gadgets and doodads, personal items and pictures scattered about on your desk? When was the last time you saw the whole top of your desk and it saw a can of polish?

Here are just three interesting statistics from two polls from Coopers & Lybrand and USA Weekend:

The average desk worker has 36 hours worth of work on their desk and wastes up to 3 hours a week just “looking” for STUFF!
7.5% of all documents get lost and 3% get misfiled.
Professionals spend 5 to 15% of their time reading information, but up to 50% looking for it!

Think about your desk for a minute and how your days play out:

Estimate how many hours of work you have piled on your desk?
Estimate how much time you waste each week looking for stuff on your desk?
How many documents did you lose or misfile last year?
Are you scheduling regular time to read?
What do you do with the article, magazine, or memo you have read?
After reading, if you keep, can you find it if needed?

Be honest with yourself here – to be successful – and I know you want to be successful – having a clean and organized desk and spaces will and CAN help you move forward faster!

Ten Tips to Cleaning Off Your Desk

1. SCHEDULE a date and time with yourself. Write it on your calendar and keep this appointment, just as you would an important meeting with a client or a doctor.
2. TOOLS:
>>Set a timer for the length of time you have decided to work on this project.
>>Make signs (TEASER) or mark boxes with the following: Current Paperwork, Reference Paperwork, Historical Paperwork, Refer to someone else. another room, or take home, Supplies, Reading, and Data Entry (those business cards or scraps of paper that you need to put into your database, address book, or calendar).
>>Box of garbage bags.
>> Pad of Paper and Pen (to write down anything you think of doing or to make a to-do list for later.
3. CLEAR and EMPTY:
Take everything off your desk and out of your desk drawers.
4. SORT everything into new piles that you made signs for or the boxes you marked from number 2 above.
5. File or Toss: Click up a FREE copy of our “5 W’s of File or Toss” at mailto:jhall2-119009@autocontactor.com
6. Read or Toss: Click up a FREE copy of our “5 W’s of Read or Toss” at mailto: jhall2-49610@autocontactor.com
7. Polish your desk and get the dirt and grim out of your desk drawers.
8. After sorting ONLY put back on your desk what you use Daily, such as:
Pen, Pencil, Phone, Phone Pad, Desk Workbook, Tickler File, Computer, Calendar, and Lamp.
9. Do NOT put back on your desk items that are seldom used and NOT used daily, such as:
Gadgets/Toys, Glue, Scissors, Hole Puncher, Pencil Sharpener, Ruler, and In/Out Box (your Tickler File will replace this).
10. Drawers: Before you start putting things back into your desk drawers, think of how you would like to utilize them, and consider which hand is “habit” for you to open a drawer.
The hand that is “habit” should be the same side of your desk drawers that you store frequently used items, such as:
Supplies, Stationary, and Current Files.

Ten Tips for Maintaining a Clean Desk

1. When you stop working on a project put it away.
2. Put date or calendar related papers/files into your tickler file as soon as they land on your desk.
3. Sort through mail and toss out all junk mail as soon as it arrives.
4. Schedule regular reading time and put “to read” material in a reading folder.
5. Do NOT use scraps of paper or sticky pads. Use your Desk Workbook to record all your notes, ideas, phone numbers, web site and email addresses, errands, and to-do’s.
6. Schedule regular desk maintenance.
7. Schedule filing time and store your to-file in the corresponding date of your tickler file.
8. Make a frequently called numbers sheet and store under your mouse pad or inside a drawer.
9. Create a Pending Folder to store papers or files in that you are “waiting” for more information, someone else to get back to you on, or something you have ordered.
10. Dust, polish, and wipe down your desk weekly.

Organized and Clean Desk

Please bookmark this tip and after you use these cleaning off your desk tips please come back here and leave a comment how this has helped you clean off your desk – I’d love to hear from you!

Or if you have some “cleaning off your desk” tips you’d like to share please leave a comment now!

Sign up for my blog posts at the top right – so you won’t miss that post – and every time I post it will be delivered to your inbox (and when you sign up don’t forget to verify that you did – you’ll get an email to do that – just click on the link).

Categories : Getting Organized, Running Your Business

Feb
24

Rootkit Virus Removal

by Janet L. Hall, Web Trainer/Developer

How to Remove Rootkit Viruses – Or Can You?

Before I give you some tips on rootkit virus removal I feel I must share my story with you of what happened to me so hopefully it doesn’t happen to you – what to watch for – although your experience might be slightly different.

Last Friday, Feb. 17th, 2012, I had just finished up a day long webinar, Builder Bonanza, with WebDesign.com, which was a FABO class!

During classes we are always given links, either by the Professor (aka Benjamin Bradley) or others in the class chat room to great sites that will assist us with our work and web sites. I generally open up the link in a new tab and after class I add them to my favorites (or bookmark them) to be used or reviewed later.After I did this I was checking out some links from a potential vendor for doing some work for a potential client. I was visiting one of the vendor’s previous client’s Twitter home page and all of a sudden my computer flashes back to my desktop, a box popped up, called “System Checker”, with the Microsoft™ flag logo on it and it began to run, and in my start up balloons started popping up telling me my hard drive was about to crash, I was out of memory, and on and on it went all the while this “System Checker” is running.

I could NOT close it out or stop it from running!!!

Please note that I am not inferring that any of the links I was visiting from class or vendor gave me the rootkit virus – I could have had it for a while and it decided to “pop up it’s ugly head” when it did!

After the “System Checker” stopped running it said I had to buy it to finish fixing all my problems – and then I knew my computer was in BIG trouble!! And I could NOT close out this “System Checker” box.

And EVERYTHING disappeared from my desktop, my task bar and my start up menu, except for three icons. I don’t recall now what icons were left because I was FREAKING out!!!!!

I had access to nothing except those three icons, couldn’t see any of my files – zip, gone – “lost”!

So I hysterically phone my computer repair guy – by this time it’s about 7PM – and FREAK out on him a little …..

He tells me he can come by on Sat. at 10AM and I say, “I’m going out of town so I’ll make sure hubbie is here to let you in”. I am calm and confident that he can fix this problem.

By noon on Sat. I get the call he hasn’t been able to do anything could he take my computer home and work on it over weekend – Sure – Please have it back on Mon. by 10AM.

Long story short – He couldn’t fix it – which surprised me (he did say he got rid of the virus – Well you will soon see he DID NOT); however the GOOD news was ALL my files and programs where still on my computer, they were just “hidden” by the rootkit virus. He knew this because he ran a Linux program on my computer and could see everything – just couldn’t get to anything.

He suggested I purchase another laptop ( a cheap one – for around $400) until we could figure this out!!!

My expression: IS he CRAZY! I’m not made of money!!!

My computer is top dollar and I’m still paying for it – Dell’s Precision M6500, starting out at over $2000.00 and I have ALL the bells and whistles! (I knew I should have brought a MAC!!!)

This NOT being what I wanted to hear I decide to call my son in NC who is a Virus Remover, Computer Repairman EXPERT and does this day in and day out for a living for the past 10 years or so.

Me: Son, I’ve been attacked by a virus and now I can’t see any of my files or programs – PLEASE HELP ME!!!

Son: Can you get on the Internet?

Me: Yes

Son: Sounds like you have a rootkit virus. Here are the steps I want you to take:

Rootkit Virus Removal Steps That “Might” Help You

WARNING: You might NOT need to do all these steps and might need HELP with some – Caution!

1. Download and run ComboFix – I did – I’ll tell you about that in a sec.

2. Download and run TDSSKILLER – What a time I had to get this – I’ll tell you about that in a sec.

3. Go to the DOS command and type in atribe – this was a mumble from him so not sure if that is what he said – and I didn’t get that far as you will see if you continue reading. I hope you do because I have some other important things to share with you.

4. If all else fails try using unhide.exe

ComboFix

It took a while to get the “right” ComboFix – (use the link I gave you above). Got it, downloaded and ran it. It ran for about FOUR hours!

When it finished I was presented with a text log and I printed it out, just in case someone needed to read it.

I restarted my computer and PRAYED!!!

I gave my computer Reiki

And I would have stood on my head if that would help – if I could stand on my head!

So my screen comes back on and there appear to be only those three icons!

I’m sure I swore some selected curse words and THEN out of the corner on my left eye in the top left corner of my desktop I noticed a WORD doc icon on the screen!

That wasn’t there before I ran ComboFix – so I clicked on it…

…MAGIC!

ALL my desktop icons and start up menus came back!!!!!

Hallelujah – Praise the Lord and my son!!!

But wait – where are my task menu items?

I click on Start all Programs – I click on several different folders – it says EMPTY!!!

More Freaking out – then calm – look in My Computer – and to my surprise EVERYTHING was there and I could open anything I clicked on.

Needless to say I did the happy dance and called my son to tell him how wonderful he was and asked if I should do step two: Download and run TDSSKILLER

TDSSKILLER

Son: Wouldn’t hurt

So I make him stay on the phone with me as I track down the link and WAIT a MINUTE!!!!

I click on the links – any links that say they have TDSSKILLER and every link takes me to a DIFFERENT web site with all these ads on them!

Son: Mom, you still have a virus!!

Oh GOD!!!!

So I discovered if I copied and pasted the link into the browser I could navigate to the correct page.

I download TDSSKILLER, click to run it and NOTHING!

It won’t run!!!

Son: Rename the file to iexplore.com

I rename it, click, nothing – it just won’t run.

Son: When I get home from work I’ll do a remote with you and check it out.

So later we do a remote viewing (we used teamviewer).

Son: Just mail your computer to me and I’ll fix it – I really can’t do anything from here.

I thought: Is he CRAZY? Mail my “precious” to NC!!!!!

Me: I’d rather not do that. Let me call one more local computer person, actually my old computer repair person I had just found out that weekend was back in MD.

So he comes over on Monday, evaluates the situation and tells me the virus is too DEEP into my system. The best thing to do is wipe it clean and reinstall everything.

I thought: Is he CRAZY? Does he realize how much “STUFF” I have on this computer and how many programs I would need to reload!!!!

Anyway, I reluctantly give in to this.

We did a double back up of my docs, my pics, my videos, my bookmarks, and all my email.

He tells me the steps I need to do and leaves because this is going to take a long time – call him later and he’ll take me through the rest of the steps over the phone.

Well I couldn’t get my computer to recognize the reboot CD – hit any key – I hit them all and nothing was happening!

So back to my son I call.

Son: MOM – DO NOT DO THAT!

He had me do a lot of things and then we did a remote, another type of box pops up about viruses and wants to run, and then, and then, I was stuck at Windows Starting – that’s it -frozen.

Son: Just mail me the damn thing! I can fix it for you and you won’t lose anything or need to reload all your programs.

As of 15 minutes ago, this Friday the 24th, my computer has arrived at his home in NC.

I see him using all his tools and knowledge to remove the rootkit virus once and for all and get me up and running again.

BTW – son is calling this the rootkit.boot.piranha virus; however I think that might be a name he gave it! LOLOLOL

Total cost out of my pocket so far: $388 – maybe I should have brought a cheap computer – LOLOLOL

So there you have my story (and why I haven’t blogged in a week – I’ve been busy) and some rootkit virus removal steps; however I HOPE this never happens to you!

Update: Sat., Feb. 25, 2012 son called at 10:30 AM to tell me my computer is fixed and back in tack! NO wiping the hard drive or reinstalling – YIPEE!!! He is the BEST!! Packing it up to ship back to me today – that’s what I call real service and expertise. Thanks son! The virus was rootkit.boot.bb (not sure about the bb part)

If you have read this far then I’d like to ask you a few questions:

1. What anti virus software do you use and love?

2. Have you ever had the rootkit virus and what did you do?

3. What downloads did you use to get rid of it?

Please leave your comments, suggestions, or ideas below and if you found this helpful please also tweet, FB, Google + or what ever you want to do to let others know about my story with the rootkit virus!

Categories : Running Your Business

Feb
15

Financial: Did You Finance Your Business with Credit Cards? Still Paying?

by Contributing Author: Paula Langguth Ryan, Strategic Financial Consultant

Financing Your Business with Credit Cards

Two common ways small businesses get start-up capital are savings and credit cards. While I recommend savings as the best way to go, using credit cards instead of a bank loan makes sense when you don’t have any collateral to offer a lender. The problem comes when you’re years into your business and you’re continuing to use your credit cards on a regular basis, or are trying to pay them down with no success.

The best way to use credit cards in your business is to purchase large items, like new equipment for expansion (we’ll cover the best ways to do THAT in a future column!), printing or production costs, or training. These are single shot expenses that offer a concrete payoff, and come with a finite payment amount until the debt is repaid.

What if you’re using your credit cards to float your monthly expenses?

It’s time to look at your monthly expenses and the amount you’re drawing out of the business for yourself.

Try this experiment:

Go one month without having anything “automatically” charged to your credit card, and without using your credit cards to pay for anything.
Use only an automated debit card withdrawal, pay by check, or use cash (save your receipts!).
If you have more month left over than money, you’ll know it’s time to pare back.
If you have more cash left over than month, then you’ll know you’re using your credit cards wisely, as long as your balance isn’t going up each month!

Now, what if your balance continues to climb, or you’re paying down a chunk, charging it back up, then paying it down again?

Here’s the strategy I give folks in my Break the Debt Cycle – For Good! workbook and CD.

Start paying JUST the minimum payment, charge absolutely nothing new to the card, and save the extra chunks you had been throwing at the balance each month.
Build the savings cushion, then increase your payments until the bill is paid.
You’ll live within the cash flow of your business and set aside money for future unexpected expenses.
The savings are there to take care of extra bills without adding to your debt.
You’ll slowly and steadily get out of debt AND you’ll find you have much more creativity!

Share with Us and Others!

Please share with us how you financially started your business.
How are you financing your business now?
Do you need more help with credit card debt?
What are you doing that helps?
What are you doing and is NOT working?
Post a comment, press the Share buttons, sign up for our blog posts and newsletter!

We’d love to hear from you and keep in contact – thanks for reading!!!

***

Categories : Finances, Running Your Business

Feb
8

Financial: How to Calculate Your Business Expenses For Maximum Profit

by Contributing Author: Paula Langguth Ryan, Strategic Financial Consultant

Calculate Your Business Expenses

I had a client once who spent hundreds of dollars buying matching furniture, matching file cabinets, hanging files and even matching folders. All for a space that no one else would ever see. Yet she had a challenge some months paying the basic bills (electricity and internet, for example) because her cash flow had been depleted.

Whether you’re starting business, or reassessing your business finances, it’s always a good time to examine your expenses to make sure you have ample cash flow.

Start by sorting your expenses into essential and optional expenses. Then review the list and double check every item you’ve considered “essential.” Is it truly essential? Meaning, will this expense enhance your efficiency and profitability?

For example, spending money on a transcription machine versus starting and stopping a recording manually, speeds up your ability to transcribe audios and maximizes your time. In this case, the transcription machine might be an essential expense. Hiring someone to do the transcriptions would be an optional expense; one that could eventually become essential as you grow, but not necessarily a must-have right now.

Taxes, utilities, supplies. These are essential business expenses. Some others that might be optional (and some essential options that can reduce your monthly expenses!) are:

Full time secretary versus virtual assistant (full salary versus hourly needs)
Voice mail versus answering machine (monthly charge versus one time fee)
Purchasing equipment versus renting on an as needed basis (run the numbers yourself to see which is more economical)

You get the idea. Think outside the box. Look over every business expense with an open eye. A simple reassessment of your business expenses could instantly increase your profits 25%.

***

Categories : Finances, Running Your Business

Feb
1

Business Rabbit Holes

by Janet L. Hall, Web Trainer/Developer

One things leads to another.

If this then that.

Rabbit HOLES of Business! Ever have any?

Yesterday I wanted to blog about X product – I didn’t.

Why?

Because I fell into a rabbit hole!

It all started last week when I had to reorder X product as I only had two left. Well the price per unit went up – not much – and then shipping costs went up on Jan. 22, 2012. With those two increases I would be losing money if I didn’t raise the cost of the X product.

So I thought, easy enough – I’ll just go into my shopping cart and change the prices, go to the web site and change the prices (the X product has three prices for US, Canada, and International)….Well then came the Rabbit Hole!!

When I went to the main site for just that product it looked REALLY bad in Firefox, Safari, and Chrome. It looked like it was suppose to in Explorer, which I thought was odd!

The site I built a looooong time ago using FrontPage (FP) and I’ve been wanting to convert it to a WordPress (WP) site and add a video demonstrating the product – time to do that now I guess.

The product is also on several of my other sites so I will need to change the prices there also – but wait a minute – another Rabbit Hole!

All my FP sites are on my old computer – well technically not any more. Actually none of my FP sites are on any computer or back up drives in my office (I have four computers and five external hard drives for backing up in my office).

Here’s what happened to them – I deleted them ALL – “thinking” they were backed up when I did a big backup and clean up of the old computer the FP sites lived on.

Guess what? It seems “system folders” – those created already for you by Microsoft - don’t automatically back up – although I could be wrong here but don’t think so.

I backed up all My Documents Folder in which lived the “system folder” My Webs and My Webs did NOT back up – and I deleted the folder BEFORE checking to make sure it was backed up.

So now I have the task of FTPing all my FP sites, although I thinking of just FTPing them into Dreamweaver and eventually making them all WP sites – another Rabbit Hole.

But wait there’s MORE!

The product is also on someone else’s site that resells it for me – I will need to notify them of the price increase and they will need to change it on their site.
I have an affiliate program – all my affiliates will need to be notified and make the changes on the program.
This product is part of a PPC (Pay Per Click) campaign in Google Adwords – so I will need to revamp the ads.

One things leads to another.

If this then that.

Rabbit Holes!

What kind of Business Rabbit Holes have you fallen into? Please share!

And for your viewing pleasure – here’s Alice: