For us, as entrepreneurs, it is so easy to become overwhelmed by the mounds of work that comes into our office, especially via E-mail. I know that I myself have easily fallen victim to the trap of letting my in-box become overwhelming. A great deal of our time is wasted having to empty out an overwhelming inbox. Many times we might read the same email several times thinking “I don’t have time, I’ll deal with that later” and before we know it our inbox becomes so overwhelming that it takes an entire day to sort through it. As we work our way through it we soon begin to find things that should have been dealt with or that have been overlooked and undoubtably the stress begins to build.

This quarter I am taking on a new strategy with respect to my email and I am inviting each of you to join with me. I am developing the 3 D’s strategy for keeping email messages under control: Do it, Delete it or Delegate it.

Each and every email I read from here on out will be handled in one of 3 ways:

1. DO IT - These are the emails that will require an action by me. If it isn’t something I can answer immediately or act upon immediately, I have also set up two folders and one is “To Read” and one is “To Do”. When it falls under one of these categories I will move it to those folders for later action. I have now also worked into my schedule a half hour at the end of each day and a half hour at the beginning of each day to go through the “To Do” folder and make sure that it is completed each day.

2. DELETE IT -Let’s face it we are inundated with emails, several of which are not something we ever plan to act on. We also receive several emails where a conversation is ended by the other party that should be deleted. Also, once you have answered an email and for which you are not waiting for a reply, you should delete it. By removing it from your inbox, it will tell you that it no longer requires anything to be done.

3. DELEGATE IT - Finally if I am unable to handle something in an email and it needs to be handled by someone else I “delegate it” to them and forward that email.

My final piece of advice is to create a folder entitled “Waiting for a reply”. This will be for all those emails that you have acted on and you are waiting for a response from someone else. These are those emails that you don’t want to delete just yet for fear of forgetting that you are waiting for something before being able to “Do It”, but that clutter your in-box nonetheless. By moving these from your in-box or your “To Do” files they will not clutter these spaces and cause you to read them several times. Always be sure, however, to make it a point of checking your “waiting for a reply” daily and deleting those that you have received a reply on.

I hope that by implementing these tips you will soon find that checking your emails is not taking up huge chunks of time in your day. With any luck, the next time you hear “you have mail” you will not want to jump under your desk and hide.

Okay so whoever came up with this saying? I hear it all the time, but it doesn’t get any easier to take when life comes by and kicks you!!

I have been dealing with a great deal of stress in my life lately and until today I have been letting it get the better of me, but this morning I decided that it was time to fight back. See I firmly believe that stress can kill because it is amazing the things it is doing to me right now. I have lost all my energy and have been at a standstill to find it. All I want to do is find my bed and sleep until all my problems go away!!

As an entrepreneur, energy is a huge requirement in the success of our business because it is so easy to walk away and say “I’ll deal with that later”!! So how is an entrepreneur to deal with it … the answer “look it straight int he eyes and let it know it can’t win!!”

My goal (since it’s a new month it’s a great time to set new goals) is to do everything I can to not let stress beat me out. Here are the 5 things I am going to put into place to help me cope:

• Write things out and stick to my list. When we have other things on our mind it is so easy to forget about things. I have even taken the extra step to highlight the entries in my to do list … yellow means I must tackle this today, pink can wait until the yellows are done and the blues just need to be done before the week is over.
• Set up rewards. I am going to reward myself for sticking by my new goal by enjoying something at the end of a successful day. Since for me, writing is an enjoyment, I am going to allow myself after completing 4 things on my to do list to take an hour off to write (which is what I am doing right now by writing this post!!). This gives me something to look forward to and makes it easier to get through my tasks each day
• Take breaks. So many times we get so caught up in what is going on we forget to take a second and just breathe. One of the biggest reasons we get so exhausted and tired when faced with stress is that we spend so much time worrying that we forget to give ourselves a break from the stress and just relax, take a deep breathe and enjoy the good things that are happening in our lives.
• Stop letting my stress consume me. Oh this one is going to be the hardest one since I find it so hard not to let my thoughts keep returning to the stressors in my life!! However, I am sure that this continual thinking is actually compiling the stress … and truly, if I can’t do anything to change it right at that moment is thinking about it accomplishing anything?
• Do something proactive. Okay so although I said I wasn’t going to be continually thinking about my stressors, I will be brainstorming something I can do to change it … a step (no matter how big or small) that will make a difference … instead of complaining I am going to become proactive and do one little thing each day to try to change that stress … although I know it can’t be eliminated completely, by doing one little thing to move me towards change I know that stress will slowly become a thing of the past

So now I throw it back to you … how is it that you deal with stress? When staying positive seems so hard, how do you stay positive anyways? Do you hide your stressors to the point that no one knows any different? Or does everyone know to stay clear of you?

I’d love to hear your feedback and ideas for how you are handling the stresses that life throws your way!! How are you fighting stress and allowing it to make you stronger?

If you, like me, have several clients, how are you keeping everything separate? The system I have created works for me, but I would love to hear how you are keeping your clients organized and separate. Are you utilizing a software program, a folder system, a filing system? What systems have you tried that have or haven’t worked for you?

The system that I have found works the best is a binder that has the separators for each client. Within each separator, I have placed binder paper for note taking. The first page is a page where I have all the crucial information such as contact information, passwords, etc.. Then I follow that with a copy of my contract and the procedures and systems I use for that client to perform the tasks they require. Finally I have blank papers for note taking.

Each time the phone rings I take the binder down and turn to the appropriate clients separator. I then write the date and take notes from our phone call. If they send me an email then I print the email and insert it into the binder. As tasks are completed and instructions taken care of I write beside the date and time that the project was completed.

This system has allowed me to quickly go back and find things at a moment’s notice. It has been a great system for keeping my clients separate and myself organized. However, I am always open to hearing new ideas so please let me know what works for you.

Without a doubt as a business owner, we all know the value of good customer service, but I really wanted to share this article with you by someone I admire, Seth Godin. Here is a direct link to this blog post. This article states it like it is and what I took most from this article is that if the customer is wrong then we, as small business owners, don’t have to work with them. Afterall we started our business to be happy and enjoy what we do and no one says that we have to work with people that make us unhappy or cause us to stop enjoying what we do. You read this article and let me know what you think.

The Customer is Always Right

Stewpolicies Greg writes in and wants to know if that’s really true. What if the customer is an amnesiac, a jerk, a difficult blowhard badmouther? What if the customer is the sort that wears his LL Bean khakis for a year and then sends them back?

In our ultracompetitive markets, how can you possibly have a chance in the face of enormous consumer power?

The answer might surprise you. It’s the unwritten rule 3 on Stew Leonard’s famous granite rock:

If the customer is wrong, they’re not your customer any more.

In other words, if it’s not worth making the customer right, fire her.

Successful organizations (and I include churches and political parties on the list) fire the 1% of their constituents that cause 95% of the pain.

Fire them?

Fire them. Politely decline to do business with them. Refer them to your arch competitors. Take them off the mailing list. Don’t make promises you can’t keep, don’t be rude, just move on.

If you’ve got something worth paying for, you gain power when you refuse to offer it to every single person who is willing to pay you.

In 1988, my book packaging company had about six weeks worth of payroll in the bank. Yet we fired our biggest customer, someone who accounted for more than half our revenue. I still believe it was the right thing to do. We ended up happier and more successful, making up the business in a few months time.

If you treat a customer like he’s wrong, he’s going to leave, and probably tell a bunch of other people. Before you take that route, be direct, straightforward, polite and firm, and decline to sell to them.

So yes, the customer is always right. And if they’re not, then one way or the other, they’re not your customer any more

As a new business owner, we spend the most amount of our time trying to determine the best price for our product or service. We worry if it’s too high or too low, we worry if the price will attract clients and we worry if we can create a thriving business based on that price. Here are some of the mistakes we make, as entrepreneurs, when setting our price.

Undervaluing Expertise
We often look at our price and think “no one will pay that”. I know this is especially true for many business owners as we worry that we will be judged by others in our field and not for the expertise we provide. If you have numbers of years in the field of your business and or an expertise that is in demand, you can feel justified in setting your price higher.

We Can Do it Faster
Many of us base our price on how long it takes us to finish the job. After years of doing the task, we become very fast at completing this task. Instead of pricing based on how long we take to complete a task, we should be looking to industry standards (or at the least thinking about the time it takes the average person to complete the task).

We are Running a Business
We have overhead costs, unbillable time and other hidden costs that need to be factored into our price. For example, hiring an in-house assistant may cost $10-$15, but you can guarantee that the overhead costs can easily double or triple that cost. The comparison to our price as a business owner and the price of hiring staff needs to take these things into account.

The biggest thing to remember is that in order to ask a price and receive it, you must be confident … it is easier to convince a pending client to work with you and pay your price when you are confident in it. Otherwise a person is likely to think that they can “talk you down”.

One of the biggest hurdles to our success, as small business owners, is burnout. When your business begins to consume you and take over your life you can easily fall victim to this trap. This is why it is important to schedule your day including time for breaks.

When you first start your business you should be thinking about exactly how much time you are willing to put into your business. I understand it takes a great deal of hard work to get a business off the ground, but once you are established where will your clients be if you are not there to service them because you have simply burned out?

From the very beginning it is important to establish a schedule and stick to it. If you plan to not work weekends then don’t work weekends. If you plan to take time each day to exercise because that is a part of your daily routine now, then by all means exercise. It is amazing how quickly our businesses can take over our lives if we let them, but believe me at some point something will have to give and without a strong will I am sure it will be you and your health.

If, by chance, you have not taken the time to do these things when you started your business it is never to late to start. Don’t be afraid to ask for help (I think I might know a great Virtual Assistant that would be willing to help you out) with those chores that are least productive and taking up the most of your time.

Start small by setting a time each day to take a break … spend that time away from your business doing something you love … read a book, go for a walk, play Sudoku … whatever it takes to give your brain and body the rest it needs. Work a starting time and an ending time into your day and stick to it by scheduling your daily tasks within this time frame. If you still find you lack enough hours in a day then it is time to call in the reinforcements.

Unfortunately what some of us forget is that we must come first … if something happened to you tomorrow, your client’s would obviously make other arrangements, but your family and friends will mourn you for many days to come. Remember that life is for living and spending time with your family and friends … once you start remembering this and letting go a little bit you will be amazed to learn that not only will your business continue to thrive, but so will you.

Many of us have gone into business to allow us more time to spend with our children, but do you involve them in your business with you? Even when you have young children getting them involved can lessen some of the stress of trying to balance home and work.

The simplest way to involve your children is to explain to them in age appropriate terms exactly what it is that you do. As your children grow teach them a little more of what you are doing and involve them in little aspects of your business. As your children begin to understand what it is that you do and more importantly why you do it, you will see their respect for your business will increase.

For my business, it was important that my children (6 and 9) said more than “my mom plays on her computer all day” when asked what I did. My son will proudly tell others “my Mom is a Virtual Assistant and helps her clients run their businesses”. He can even answer the question … “A Virtual what?”!! I also, try to get my kids involved by discussing my day at dinner in general terms. I tell them about new projects and clients and about meetings that I have attended. They understand the meaning of running a small business and the sacrifices and rewards that are all a part of keeping me “at home” and available to them.

I am sure that once you take the time to include your children in your business they will gain a new respect for what it is that you are doing and why you have chosen to do that. My children know that if they do not support me and respect my “business time” then I may have to give up my business and get a “job” outside the home. They are not willing to sacrifice the things that being a small business owner has provided to them such as mom being home every night after school.

Just as importantly it will be fundamental that you let them know that family time is important too and you can do this by not focusing on anything but them during family time. Once you begin to get your family involved in your business and a factor in your success, you will be well on your way to creating a truly thriving business and having a true balance of home and work.

If you want to have a thriving business, first you must think and act like a thriving business. A great way to do this is with daily affirmations. I always take 5 minutes at the end of the day to review my day and think of three positive things that happened that day. Here are some examples of things you can see as positive:

• I signed a new client
• I met a goal today
• I took much needed time to myself today
• I finished a project I was working on
• I asked for a referral today

Your positive affirmations can be anything no matter how big or small, the important thing is to focus on what is great in your business. Another thing with affirmations is that the more you say them the more you will believe them … so try adding this affirmation to your daily affirmations

I AM A SUCCESS

you will be amazed at what this one little thing will do for your business.

We often hear the term “ignite your passion” or “fuel the fires”. As a business owner, determining what fuel it is that ignites your passions and fuels your business to thrive is a key goal in your success. For myself, my fuel is my children.

Three years ago, while on a parental leave, I realized that I was tired of my children not getting off the bus to my face each night. By the time I would get home from work and pick them up at daycare it left very little time for homework and family time before it was time to be thinking of putting them to bed. I began to do some research into stay at home careers and the rest is, as they say, history.

Every time I struggle within my business I simply remind myself why it is that I started my business and why I am doing what I am doing … this alone gives me the strength to conquer any obstacle. I know that my children will reap the benefits of having me home with them each and every day.

The next time that you are feeling overwhelmed or feeling frustrated as a business owner I invite you to look to your fuel and remember why it is that you are in business!!

Well … I must admit that I haven’t been keeping up with my blog as much as I would have liked and a lot of that has to do with needing a break from it all … since starting my business nearly 2 years ago, I have yet to take a break … so this week I am taking a much needed break from it all.

So my tip for today, Manic Monday, is that no matter how much you think you could never take some time off, your business is likely to benefit from you taking a much needed break. Your business will benefit from you taking the rest you need and a chance to “get away from it all”.

So, this week that is what I am doing and I will return next week with a rejuvenation and excitement that I know that I have been lacking for a few months now. I am using this vacation to recharge my batteries and I know that my clients, my colleagues and my business will benefit from this short break!!

Until next week, Enjoy!! (I know I will)