Today, a friend and I were lamenting about getting people to do things and finish projects.  She said didn't I write an article once about this and I said, yes, it was a while ago.  In fact it was 2009. It was on another blog forum so it belongs here as well, based on recent events. This article is a departure from topics I normally write about.  By the way, this topic has been a speech, a magazine article and a discussion group topic.  It's about managing

I work with Excel so often that I forget that things I do all the time and take for granted may not be widely known or used.  Today is yet another example.  While working on a client spreadsheet I did something that made my client exclaim and stop me mid-stream to show him what I had done. We were working on multiple sheets in a workbook - actually it was his Paypal transactions and we were preparing sheets for each month.  He had already started the sheets and I was putting in

Yesterday I was once again reminded of something I read in a book by Dale Carnegie: "91% of customers say they give referrals yet only 11% of salespeople ask for them." One of my clients said they were really happy with what we had done and that they were going to refer us to their business networking group. And I asked myself, "self, when was the last time you asked for a referral?" Quick rap on the forehead, and then a postit note saying "Ask for a Referral" placed on the monitor. Such

Spring is in the air and it's time for some spring cleaning.  How often do your scrub your contact lists? How often do you check for duplicates and merge them? If you are like most people, not often enough. That's not surprising.  We all get caught up in our day to day work schedules so data cleansing is not high on the priority list.  But it should be.  Bad data costs money - in efficiency, lost revenue, wasted marketing expenditures, and a variety of other ways. And you

Yet again, I met with a new client to discuss their current business "problem" or like I call them - "challenge."  The client called me looking for a silver bullet or tool.  By the end of the discussion, I believe I had them headed down the right path - that of better defining the process and problem and coming up with an appropriate solution that may or may not be based on a specific tool. This happens all the time.  That made me realize it would make a good blog article.  

A client of mine called me last week concerned about some of his information showing up on a competitor's blog. When we looked at the article, it was very apparent that entire paragraphs had been copied and used in the blog. This indeed was plagerism and he called me for advice on his next steps. My client started blogging at my suggestion and I've been giving him advice on how to properly blog, including blogging etiquette. Playing nice, asking permission, and insuring that he also cited his

CRM. We have all heard that term by now. To many it means having a process in place to manage customer relationships. To others it is a tool. To me, it's all of the above. But before you can define what CRM means to you, you need to have an end goal in mind. What is the end result you want to accomplish. Are you small business trying to get new customers? Are you a large organization wanting to reach out to existing clients to improve the relationship you have with them? Are you suffering from

[caption id="attachment_1525" align="alignleft" width="300"] When planning a company strategy be prepared for nothing or extremes.[/caption] If you read my blog, you know we work with and support act!, a CRM tool that is going on 26 years old. It's a great product and one I believe in strongly. I can't imagine a company, particularly a small one, trying to survive without a tool like act! Recently, act! was purchased by Swiftpage. Note that I am showing act with a lower case letter - that's by