Out with the old… in with the new

We are hitting that time of year when I start to hear a lot more about changes.  Something draws people to a New Year resolution that technically makes no sense, but the psychology of it all seems to work.  I’m not going to spend any time analyzing why… really – who cares?  The good news is that this is a time of year when all of you will have to decide… what is really working for me (keep), what is really failing for me (loose), and what is missing for me (new) to be better in 2012 than I was in 2011.

In this spirit I offer my personal glimpse of out with the old… in with the new.

I’ll start on the positive… some things that are working well and I plan to keep are my Air Max, AppleTV, life planning, serving the poor, St. Louis Cardinals, texting, family vacations, D2L, family fellowship, blogging, NAMM, maintaining my own lawn, Netflix, playing basketball, IDS Bible Study, Balance Bars, MLB app for iPad, Quicken

Next are some things that are not working so well, and I need to leave them behind… ice cream, Four Square, TripIt, Tungle, my Yamaha Drums, a “bah-humbug” attitude about Christmas lights, over-eating, BlackBerry, cable TV, maintaining my pool, printing/filing paper, body fat, Sun Devil Athletics, my 2006 Dell Latitude

And looking ahead… I need to add these to my arsenal in 2012: Daily prayer journal, broadcasting, hiking, Evernote, cold-calling, taking Sydney on a mission trip, Friday date nights w/Lori, leasing 120 Kiowa, GM @ ITW, let Pujols go, Serving/Discipling at SBC, new acoustic drum kit, fasting cleanse

I skipped a lot of take-it-0r-leave-its… like beer, Facebook, golf, movies, Twitter, etc…  All good fun, but not important enough to prioritize.

I’ll probably think of more and continue adding to each list and looking back to see how successful I have been with these keep, loose, or add’s.

How about you – what will you choose to lose, choose to keep, and choose to add in the New Year?  Remember, its a long way to the top if you wanna rock & roll…

END-OF-THE-YEAR FINANCIAL CHECKLIST

You are probably a lot like most people… December comes with a flurry of activities, colder weather, and deadlines.  In other words – it may be the most wonderful time of the year, but it sure is BUSY!

That said, you may not have a lot of flexible time for year-end financial planning, but in some cases this may be the last chance you get to take advantage of some year-end opportunities and prepare for the New Year.  Here are my five favorite tips for December:

1. Review health and dental care choices. Many employers allow you to make changes to your benefit plans now. Check with doctors and dentists to make sure they’re still in your plan’s preferred provider network and that your family has adequate coverage.

2. Review use-or-lose accounts. Pretax Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs) are set up this way. Review your plan to see if you have some spending to do, or if your employer offers a grace period. Even then, make sure 2011 expenses are still allowed in 2012.

3. Review your withholding. Check the withholding calculator at the IRS website. If you haven’t been withholding enough to cover your taxes, you might want to increase the amount. Under-withholding can result in penalties.

4. Get ready for 2011 taxes. Check last year’s returns to see who needs to send you what tax documents, and by when. Make a list and follow-up if anyone holds you up at the beginning of the year. Also, check last year’s return for itemized deductions. See if you should make deductible contributions and/or purchases now or wait until 2012.

*Note: Be sure to consult with a tax professional before making any decisions related to your tax situation.

5. Set your 2012 financial goals. Now is the time to write down what you’d like to achieve financially next year. Save money for a down payment on a new house? Start a college fund for your kids? Put more into your retirement fund?

*Note: Be sure to consult with a financial planning professional before making any decisions related to investing.

I hope you find these tips to be helpful as you wind down your year and look forward to 2012!

Facebook for Business? (con’t)

Last week I began a topic covering Facebook for Business.  My goal was not to judge if this is a good or bad idea for your business, but rather to offer some tips for success if you do choose to use Facebook as a marketing tool in 2012.

Feel free to go back and read the first four tips from last week… I add these to that list:

5. Mark your milestones.

When you reach a milestone, celebrate with your fans like you would with friends. Even if it’s something small, pull your fans in and thank them.

6. Add a picture.

Put one in every Facebook status update you can. Use pictures of yourself or your customers, employees and special events. And be sure to crop them…they’ll be tiny on Facebook, so zoom in! There’s really no such thing as a bad picture.

7. Work the network.

Tap into your Facebook audience to get instant feedback, ideas on new products or services, insights on how to market better and which topics are trending with your audience. Be proactive!

8. Study the data.

There are currently volumes of data that have been crowd sourced through Facebook and other social media. Start experimenting with data mining, data-driven analysis and intelligence now, because that’s where we’re going. Learn how to use data to create more intelligent, more targeted and more effective marketing campaigns.

I hope you find these tips helpful… Take some time between now and the year-end to schedule time to review your 2012 marketing plans and dont forget to make a plan for your social media marketing.  Remember… A failure to plan is usually a plan to fail – so get going!

Facebook for Business?

After 6+ years of general use by the public and almost 1 Billion users (estimated in 2012) its time to decide if Facebook has “jumped the shark” as a social network in the future.  More interesting to me is the rise of business users who leverage their social networks to market for new business.

I am not here to judge if that is a good or bad idea, but I will say that if you choose to use Facebook for marketing, you better have a plan… a stick with it.

Let’s start with the fact that Facebook is still the biggest social network on the planet… more than double of Twitter, and not even in the same category with Google+. So it is fair to say that you really can’t ignore it in your online marketing strategy.

If you plan to use Facebook as a marketing tool in 2012, here are some tips to make your Facebook effort profitable.
1. Don’t stray from your topic.

Remember, when people “Like” your business page or posts on Facebook, they expect subsequent posts to relate to you and your industry. Here’s how to keep the ideas coming:

• Think why you visit a page–you’re looking for tips, or an answer to a question, maybe even information you don’t see elsewhere… keep it coming.
• Tie a current event to your business or your value proposition
• Ask your audience to post pictures, stories or questions about your industry to your wall
• Repost the best content back out as an update (but post more original content than reposts)
• Share YouTube videos that connect to your industry

2. Drive traffic to your website.

Don’t bury your web address on the info tab where visitors can’t find it–display it in several places. The first place to feature your web address is in the “About” field of the info tab. It’s in the very visible left sidebar of your Facebook page. Remember… only the first 80 characters are displayed before a “more”link appears. So put your web address first.
3. Give them a reason to become fans.

Use a Reveal tab to offer first-time visitors a call to action. Encourage them to Like your fan page in order to receive a coupon, a free trial or special information. This is a great way to increase fan conversion rates while offering real value to becoming a fan.

 

4. Ask them questions.

Be sure to make the questions interesting, even entertaining. It’s a great way to get your Facebook fans talking. Go for questions that need just one-word answers or are otherwise easy to respond to. Best of all are questions about the fans–people love to talk about themselves.

Let’s pause here before I deliver the rest of my tips… are these helpful?  More importantly, do they help you envision a new plan for your social media marketing?

Back to Basics

Many small business professionals get near the end of the year and they start looking back for trends that will help them better plan for the upcoming year.  I believe it takes a strategy to “keep it simple” that you need to apply consistently. Here are a few basic ingredients of such an approach that I come back to time, and time again:

1. Start EVERYTHING with the end in mind. This one is so simple, but how many times do we miss it?  Always know what your goal is in every effort you undertake or assignment you accept.

2. Don’t wait to put out a fire. Some people call this being proactive – I call it common sense. Successful people act more than they react… If you have a problem, take action quickly – don’t wait.

3. Always keep the first things first. You need to know the people and things that are of most value to you. Focus on those ahead of everything else and make sure your calendar reflects your priorities…

4. Understand your clients. It’s more important for you to understand the needs of the people you’re serving than for them to understand all the great things you do. They need to know that you actually care about them – and their success!

5. Never go alone. Don’t hesitate to engage team members or strategic partners who bring something to the table you don’t offer. When it’s appropriate, two heads definitely are better than one.

6. The knife should always cut both ways. You must deliver great benefits to your clients if you hope to receive great benefits in return. That’s the real meaning of win-win: constantly seeking mutual benefit in all your business interactions.

7. Be accountable. Pursue programs and activities that keep you fresh mentally, physically, socially (or emotionally) and spiritually. These four areas of our lives are equally important and you must have accountability in each.

8. Systemize your priorities. We all hear about time management. Hundreds of books have been written on how to better manage your time, but the key to success is knowing your priorities.  Here are four easy ways to get more efficient right now:

• Have a Life Plan. No one in their right mind builds a house without a set of plans – your life is no different.  You will never be able to manage your priorities without a good plan.  And good plans get edited during construction…
• Calendar your priorities. Reading your plan is the only way to use it – block out time at least once a week to review your life plan and make course corrections in your calendar when real life adds variables that effect your priorities.
• Keep it clean. Don’t waste time looking for things… Know where they are. I’ve never met an organized professional who isn’t successful – keep your work area, computer, and office free from clutter.
• Use Technology. Don’t get sucked into buying every new gadget. But if technology lets you get things done during waiting or down times, it makes sense to use it.  Work smarter, not harder.

I hope these are helpful, and I hope you are looking forward to a great 2012!

iCare ™ Managed Services… because we care!

One of the most exciting things about my new role with The I.T. Workshop is getting to dig deep into our value proposition. The great news is that I LOVE what we are offering to small business owners here in Phoenix!

Our best offering for clients in our target market is our iCare ™ Managed Services solution. This is an options that accomplishes what every business owner and manager is looking for – more for less.

How do we do this? Let me give you an example…

Our team of highly skilled technicians offers more experience and more diversity toward solutions than any small business could afford in any I.T. employee. And for some of our larger clients who prefer having an I.T. professional on their staff, we can provide what that technology leader really needs - a whole team for less than the cost of any single employee.

This is a big deal in a season where every company I know is looking to increase value while cutting costs – and we have a great solution to offer these clients!

But more than just the financial justification… I love the peace of mind that we offer a business leader who feels frustrated by the technology investments they have already made. Our team can come in and help organize, optimze, and in many cases streamline a company’s technology to help make everything easier.

What a pleasure it is to come to work everyday knowing that my only challege is getting in front of our target market in order to offer solutions that save time, save money, and make a business operate more smoothly – for more profit!

I’m really having a great time…

Cloud – the good, the bad… And the ugly

So far we have defined cloud computing, and we’ve touched on its history. In my mind, the next topic to cover is: why? Without a compelling reason to ask about cloud computing many business owners may simple conclude… Who cares?

Let’s take a look at the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to cloud computing.

Cloud really does offer a small or medium sized business with some potential strengths. As I mentioned previously, a very compelling reason might be realizing the huge cash-flow benefit to shifting budget dollars from capital expenditures to monthly operating expenses. This is not the right reason for all companies, but more and more we are seeing businesses make their decision to virtualize their network equipment simply to shift their expenditures to lower, predictable monthly payments.

Cloud also offers most small and medium sized businesses a significant reduction in risks related to data availability and security. Just ask yourself who is investing more money in the highest quality networking equipment available today – your small business or the 160,000 sf data center with todays best backup systems, concurrently maintainable power and cooling systems, and 24/7 armed security? The fact is, most businesses can’t imagine how much risk they have taken with data stored on a local server with a backup drive located in the same space…

So where is cloud weak? One fact to consider is that some companies operate in buildings where the connectivity does not allow them to access their data on a virtual host very efficiently. Think of it like using gmail. No matter how great the Google servers are to host your data, if you are using dial-up access to the Internet, you are jot going to enjoy the experience. Cloud computing has the same weaknesses… The chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

One other area to consider is any policy your clients or industry regulations may hold you to as the owner of public data. I believe the security strengths of most business cloud solutions are better than most private security solutions I have seen, but your compliance may simply not allow you to take advantage of some of these available cloud resources. Review your contracts with your attorney before migrating any data that you could be held accountable for.

And the ugly? Honestly, the only real mud in the water right now comes from a few service providers who act as brokers in the process of introducing a business to the cloud. Brokers may be valuable to us in other areas of business – insurance, real estate, marketing… But be careful when interviewing cloud computing brokers. Many simply sub-lease space from a data center and provide little if any managed services for your business after they migrate your data to the cloud.

The bottom line is that I can’t think of a compelling reason that a business leader today would not run a cost-benefit analysis on cloud computing compared to traditional on-site hardware networks. Not all businesses are ready for cloud, and cloud is not right for every business. But my advice?

Run the numbers. Men may lie, and women may lie… But the numbers never lie.

Cloud Computing – a look back

For many of us, it seems like 2008-2009 was the birth of the discussion of cloud computing. For consumers, this makes sense as companies we all know like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft had ramped up consumer cloud applications between 2006-2008. Many of us use these tools were simply using concepts that were tested and implemented by NASA back in the 1960′s.

The first virtualized computer system was the IBM S/360 back in 1967! The Houston Automatic Spooling Priority was the first to implement a widespread virtualization software application. IBM created these tools to help support NASA’s “moon shot” and it was not long before many Fortune 500 companies began to widely use virtual systems to support their critical operations.

My point is that cloud computing has been around for almost 45 years. This usually surprises small and medium-sized business owners. They assume IBM SmartCloud, introduced in 2009, was the first implementation, and it leads many business owners to resist the topic because they assume we are still in the “early adopter” cycle and we have many failures to figure out first.

In addition to knowing how long really big companies have been using cloud computing, I find that business owners want a simple definition for what it really means… I’ll do my best:

> Cloud for Businesses means: off-loading a company’s in-house computing to reliable providers that will host their processing on flexible, cost-efficient systems located in highly-secure off-site locations.

What this REALLY means for a business leader is the opportunity to shift from capital expenditures to operating expenditures, dramatically reducing the cost of buying and maintaining “stuff” they will throw away and replace before realizing it’s full value. This is a BIG DEAL to business leaders today who are forced to cut budgets to the bone and still deliver excellent products and services to their clients!

Let’s pause here… Does this background and definition help? Does it lead you to want to understand how this is possible? Or is this all still cloudy… with a chance of meatballs?

To Cloud or not to Cloud…

I talk with a lot of business owners and leaders and many tell me that all of this increasing talk of cloud counting is all really very… Cloudy. I find that interesting, and my only conclusion so far is a lack of clear communication about what the cloud is, a lack of clear direction on who to follow, and maybe most of all, a lack of a clear answer to the question of “why?”

Here is my attempt to dial more clearly into the topics surrounding cloud computing as it relates to MY target market – the small-to-medium-sized business owner/operator in Metro Phoenix who is only interested in technology if/when it clearly helps them crush their competition.

I’ll use this forum to develop an ongoing dialog with any of you who would like help making competent decisions surrounding cloud computing for the business you are managing. As a technology solutions company representative who has run two small businesses, I will do my best to avoid “geek speak” here – we will focus on business benefits and avoid getting lost in the woods with too much talk about features.

Please contribute. Ask questions. Add perspective. Offer advice. These tools work best when the audience is engaged and enrolled in the vision. Mine is clear: to help business leaders make technology easier to understand. If I can do that, then it will be much easier for those leaders to buy the right solutions and avoid technology they don’t need. It’s all about ROI and crushing it.

My first topic will be a background on Cloud Computing so we have context for where this all came from and a sense of when’re it is going…. I hope you will join in the dialogue and share this blog.

Lead, follow… Or get out of the way

I read a lot about leadership, and on the surface most of it appears to be good stuff. But it seems that thanks to our friends Barnes & Noble and their compadres at Amazon… and Borders (RIP), the last decade seems to have brought a boat-load of books about leadership to the table. So after a long run of leadership lessons I pause to ask – where are all of the great leaders?

Don’t get me wrong… We always have a few. The recent passing of Steve Jobs has reminded us of what an amazing thought leader he really was, somehow envisioning a future when personal computing would be commonplace in every home. This weekend’s passing of Al Davis allowed us to reflect on his leadership of a entrepreneurial league of misfits in the 1960′s who he led to a merger with the competing league to form the most profitable professional sport of all time. And you don’t have to be in memorandum to receive accolades – a financial living legend like Warren Buffet continues to make headlines for his investment leadership some 50 years into his prominence in his area of influence.

Yes, great leaders always rise up from every sphere of our culture, and often the story includes rejection – and that, in hind sight, is usually captured in fear in the moment, but starts looking like wisdom once you give some time to reflect on the actions and words shared by great leaders.

My concern is how much expectation we have put on good, normal people to suddenly become leaders. We quote great leaders for inspiration. We go to conferences to hear them speak. We read their books and buy boxes of them to share with our clients and friends… But none of that seems to be leading us to more great leaders. It’s like a connect the dots puzzle where we get to a place where we can’t connect the last two dots… And I ask: Why?

You may think of yourself as a leader, but I ask… If you are leading, how many are actually following you? Please don’t quote me your Twitter followers or your Facebook friends. I mean real followers. People who will say, “let’s go!” when you say, “this is the way.”. Real followers – not just employees who will follow you when they have a safe job and a paycheck. Are you a REAL leader?

I have my opinions, and I’d be happy to dialogue, but I would prefer to read a few comments.

What is a REAL leader?