In Just - by e.e. cummings

This is one of my all-time favorite poems from childhood, and the first day of spring got me thinking about it. Enjoy!

in just-

in Just-

spring when the world is mud-

luscious the little

lame balloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come

running from marbles and

piracies and it's

spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer

old balloonman whistles

far and wee

and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's

spring

and

the

goat-footed

balloonMan whistles

far

and

wee

e.e. cummings

Restarting or Changing a Career...

A recent Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) survey found that 75% of the nation's employees are looking for a new job. So, if you’re planning to restart your career or search for a completely new kind of job, you’re not alone. It’s important for you to see this journey as both a challenge and an opportunity. All it takes to reach your career goals is some common sense and hard work. So… where do you begin?

1. Get clear about what you want.
You can’t go out into the world and find your perfect career if you have no idea what it will look like when you see it! The first step in any job search or career change is to get very clear about what you are seeking in your next position. Not just the job title or industry, but the way your days will unfold and how your new career will serve you in your personal life.

2. Set a strategy.
Just as you would with any business initiative, a career change begins by understanding the “context” and setting priorities. So, once you’ve figured out what you want – that’s the context. Setting a strategy now requires you asking yourself ‘how do I go about getting what I want?’ Reconcile your own ideas with the input of others to target your optimal job, layout a plan to get interviews, and land that perfect position! Think about the steps you must take to get your dream job and start working through them logically one at a time.

4. Discover how to sell yourself.
Accept it – when you’re looking for a job you’re a salesman. And the product you are selling is YOU! Know your pitch inside and out. Get so comfortable talking about yourself that you can do it in your sleep. Figure out what differentiates you from all the other people clamoring for work, and make sure you get those points across in all of your job search activities.

5. Network, Network, Network!
We live in a networking world. A large percentage of the work force found their current job through a friend, family member or business associate. Especially during career changes, when your resume might not be enough, connecting with potential employers through other people gives you a powerful boost in an interview. So network, but always ask yourself, “How can this discussion move me one step closer to my objective?” Also, be sure to express gratitude for the favors you receive.

6. Prepare.
Go into every interaction, whether a formal interview or a networking meeting, having done research about the company and the people with whom you are meeting. Restarting a career or looking for a job in a field where you have little experience already puts you at a disadvantage, so don’t walk in blind. Show everyone you meet that you care enough to do your homework!

AND FINALLY …
Stay confident and trust yourself. Making a career transition is pretty straightforward – so dive in and enjoy the journey!

A Mindmapping Exercise

Mindmapping is great way to put thoughts down visibly on paper. Whether you are using it to think through a project, attain a goal or review your life overall it is an excellent way to get the right and left-brain working in unison.

Mind Mapping...And Loving It!

Business continues to be more complex and rapid planning seems to be a daily requirement. When faced with a large project, or when pressured to reach tall goals or even when you are trying to fix a reoccurring problem...Mind Mapping is the perfect tool. In this article, you will learn the three steps for creating a clear and well-organized "front-end" approach to resolving your most challenging problems or developing your most inspiring dreams! Mind Mapping will also allow you to discover new patterns, see untapped concepts and link unforeseen ideas.

Getting started: Begin by scheduling 30 minutes of uninterrupted time. Allow no distractions such as ringing telephones, loud noises or knocks at your office door. Start with a blank sheet of paper and draw a large circle in the center of the page. Next, place the name of your project, goal, dream or problem in the center of this circle. Next, draw 10 or 15 lines around the circle, like the spokes of a bicycle wheel. Lastly, on each spoke, list one idea or concept relating to the words inside the circle. Do not edit or judge the words you are placing on each spoke while you are brainstorming because you want to generate as many ideas as possible.

Tip: If you are an auditory rather than a visual learner you may want to use a tape recorder to build your Mind Map, then transfer your words to paper as the second step. If you find your ideas are not flowing, then take a break to refresh your mind or share your progress with your manager, a peer or a close friend. Sometimes having another person's perspective is just enough to get your creative juices flowing.

Developing your action words: With your initial Mind Map now complete, take a second sheet of paper and list the first "spoke" topic in the center of a new large circle and draw another five or seven lines around this circle. These lines are now the action words for completing your project, fixing a problem or realizing your dreams. When building these action words, do not make any quick assumptions but remain open to unusual ideas or solutions. Try to look at this project or task from a different level by asking yourself, "How will this impact my prospects, my owner, the clients I manage or my sales team?"

Tip: Some of the best Mind Mapping is done when we look to other industries, other professions or other successful individuals and see how they have addressed a similar problem or opportunity. Many "great" ideas are just inches from where you are standing this very minute but you have to look closely and have your "antenna" up, to see and hear them.

As a small step, try reading trade or business magazines unrelated to your current industry and you will find that "re-inventing the wheel" is seldom necessary. Plus, exposure to new ideas in other industries will help you become a "Futurist" on your own behalf...a special trait!

Taking words to action: Now comes the fun part! Take each of your Mind Maps and put them in outline form. Next to each action word, place an action step and specify the exact date for completing each task or step. Also, if you are going to delegate portions of this project, include the name of each person who will be responsible for a specific step and be certain they receive a copy of your Mind Map so they can be clear on the purpose of your request. Lastly, take the action steps you are going to personally complete and place them directly in your appointment book. By scheduling time for each step on this project you are bringing this project to "life".

Tip: Once you have completed your first Mind Mapping, pause and reflect joyfully on what you have accomplished. This process is specifically designed to support your thinking process and will get easier and easier, with practice. Remember, Mind Mapping is meant to be fun and can be done in large groups, at your next big meeting or any time you need to visualize ideas quickly!

Mind Mapping Resources:

Mindmapping: Your personal guide to exploring creativity and problem solving. by Joyce Wycoff

"BrainMapping" by Dudley Lynch, published by Brain Technologies Corp., Denver, CO

Tony Buzan, 'The Mind Map Book: How to Use Radiant Thinking to Maximize Your Brain's Untapped Potential".

The Role of Finance in Business

As scary as the numbers can be, it is crucially important that business owners and managers develop basic financial management and analysis skills. Read further and explore the systems and practices that will help you build a healthy company.

All leaders need assistance and advice when handling money, but expecting someone else to actually manage your financial outlook for you is asking for trouble. These simple tips will help you develop a sound fiscal management system for your organization that will balance time constraints with your need to understand your complete financial picture.

For starters, there are a few key people that can be incredibly useful resources. If you have a board of directors or advisory group, appoint an experienced finance manager to be your ‘treasurer’ and allow them to give you guidance. Every small business and start-up firm also needs an accountant - but don’t count on them to completely take over the management of your money. Accountants are wonderful for helping you set up a bookkeeping system, generate financial statements and watch for errors; however, you are still ultimately responsible for understanding your financial position and the ramifications that management decisions will have on your bottom line.

Second, go ahead and invest in a good software package to help you manage your money. QuickBooks, Quicken and Microsoft Money are all tried and true tools that are widely compatible with other programs. Software can greatly reduce the time required to enter and manage accounting transactions or generate financial statements, plus it is handy for printing reports, sending files to your accountant and managing how staff members are allowed to access your financial data.

Third, you need to build a strong relationship with your business banker. Even if you don’t have a lot of money in the beginning, open a business checking and savings account and get to know the people in your local branch. Bankers can be a great resource for loans and advice, plus you’ll need their help if you ever have a problem.

So now we’ve come to the nuts and bolts of this article – bookkeeping basics. The main thing to remember with managing money is that everything – and I mean everything – hinges on good recordkeeping! If your deposits, checks, credit card charges, cash expenditures and accounts are not tracked accurately, then the entire process is corrupted. So please, keep copies of everything, enter transactions regularly, and stay on top of your finances so that your accountant doesn’t want to strangle you at tax time. With that said, let’s take a quick glance at the principles of bookkeeping that you will need to master to be a successful entrepreneur:

Classifying Accounts. Different types of financial transactions are assigned to different accounts so that they are easy to track and understand. You can create your own chart of accounts or use a standard format, but you do need to understand the different classifications of your income and expenses.

Retaining Records. There are many varying levels of record retention and documentation that are required by the I.R.S and state law. Be sure you know what proof you are expected to keep and always err on the side of caution when maintaining your financial records. Better safe than sorry!

Controlling Access & Accuracy. All companies should have financial controls in place to ensure that transactions are recorded and maintained accurately and that employees don’t accidentally or intentionally corrupt financial data. There is no way to go into all the options available in this article, but every entrepreneur should definitely get familiar with financial controls.

Budgets. A budget lays out what you expect to spend and earn over a given time period. All amounts are categorized according to the type of business activities so that you can plan your finances and then track whether or not you're operating according to the plan. Budgets are also useful for projecting how much money you'll need for buying a facility, hiring a new employee, changing suppliers or adding services. There are yearly operating budgets, project budgets, cash budgets, and many more.

Cash Flow. Probably the single most important financial statement for a new business is the cash flow statement. As the leader of a new company, your biggest challenge may be managing your cash flow (cash received minus cash spent). The entire purpose of cash flow management is to always make sure that you have enough money to pay current bills.

Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable. This one is extremely basic, but we’ll still touch on it. Accounts payable are simply all the people you owe money to and accounts receivable are all the people who owe you money.

Profit and Loss Statements (P&Ls). These statements show much money you earned and subtract how much you've spent, resulting in a clear picture of how much you've made money or lost. P&L’s offer you the nature of your overall profit and loss over a period of time and allow you to see clearly how well the business is operating.

Balance Sheets. These statements depict the overall status of your finances at a given point in time. The balance sheet totals your assets and subtracts your liabilities to compute your overall net worth.

Finally, you put all of the information and reports above together, and analyze your financial outlook. Financial analysis can tell you a lot about how well your business is performing and what areas need to improve. Without analysis, you will end up staring at a bunch of numbers that make no sense to you on various financial statements. Every business owner and manager should set aside at least a few hours every month to conduct financial analysis. This may include a cash flow analysis, budget analysis, balance sheet analysis and income statement analysis. There are a myriad of tools and techniques to help you with financial analysis (for example, break-even analysis, profit analysis, and ratios analysis).

Just remember that the point of good fiscal management is not that it exists for its own sake, but rather that you use it to move your company in the right direction. Understanding the numbers can help you see whether you’ll have enough money to operate in three months, how much to charge for a product, whether costs need to be lowered or whether you can afford a new staff member.

Don’t be afraid! Dive into your finances, and you’ll be amazed at the power of the knowledge you will gain and the impact it will have on your business.

Closure Crisis

Closing out projects cleanly and completely is a struggle for many consultants. In my years of working with business owners to transform their companies, I’ve realized that it’s a problem for most clients too. Maybe they have new policies and procedures to implement. Maybe they need to draft all new forms. Maybe the company website needs a complete overhaul. Whatever the internal ‘project’ might be - closure is critical to progress.

We’ve all been there… You’ve got a project on the table and things are moving along nicely. You made a plan, gathered materials, conducted research, created rough-drafts, reviewed a myriad of options with your team - you’re almost there! But, then things bog down. You can’t seem to get the final version complete. Or maybe you complete all the hard materials and can’t implement your new procedures and objectives. Whatever the roadblock is – you can’t seem to find closure. The project drags on and on until everyone loses interest altogether. You never see the results of your hard work because you couldn’t finish what you started.

It’s a common problem and there are concrete ways to set your team up to succeed. Here are some tips on fixing the ‘closure crisis’:

Set a timeline for completion when you start a project. This is critical! Most leaders don’t have the guts to put deadlines on little tasks and projects that are going on within their business. It’s tough to look at something simple like publishing an updated edition of the employee handbook and think that it won’t be complete in a few months, but without a clear goal in sight, it probably won’t get done. Create a mindset of closure from the outset by scheduling a wrap up meeting when you start a job. Keep the project end date in the forefront of everyone’s mind, and push toward that goal by monitoring progress at regular intervals as you move forward.

Recognize that delays (however subconscious) represent a resistance to change. Most leaders assume that delays are only due to time constraints, lack of knowledge, coordination issues or other simple glitches. But endless project delays are a subtle expression of fear of change. When leaders become complicit in allowing delays to sabotage necessary work, they become part of the problem and not part of the solution. Address fear of change and procrastination up front. Your team needs to feel secure and confident in order to achieve the goals you lay out for them.

Don’t be too flexible. A certain amount of flexibility is laudable. We obviously can’t walk through the world being completely rigid in our thinking and relationships. However, owners and managers often tolerate unacceptable delays simply to maintain goodwill, and that level of flexibility is a detriment to your business. It will sap your productivity and convey a message to your team that you don’t know how to close out an assignment. They will begin to assume that results don’t matter and they just need to look busy and show signs of progress to meet your approval. There comes a point where you need to draw a line in the sand and demand closure.

Make tough calls! Many small projects linger indefinitely because there are a few key decisions that no one will make. Almost all the work is done, but there are a couple of questions that are stumping the team so they shirk from closure. Minor undecided issues can prevent assignments from reaching completion, and destroy your team’s faith in you as a leader in the process. One of the most valuable traits of good leaders is that they call tough shots when no one else will. To avoid tension, annoyance and delays – make the tough calls.

In spite of superb planning and excellent leadership some jobs will take longer than expected, but there are clear steps you can take to give your projects the best chance for success. Work consciously through that last burst of activity that is required to hit your target end date. Use these simple tips to end sloppy endings to your projects and avoid the closure crisis.

How to Avoid Bad Customers

One of my resolutions for 2008 is to choose my clients very wisely.

Sometimes your instinct is to land every customer at all costs. Many professionals spend an enormous amount of time and effort pursuing prospects. Once you’ve taken the energy to track down the decision-maker, make follow up calls, write contracts and attend meetings – it can be hard to pass on a customer. But not every prospect is really a good candidate for taking your career or business forward. In fact, some of them can be detrimental to both your mental health and bottom line!

Everyone can think of a few nightmare customers they’ve had to deal with. If you watch for early warning signs, you can often identify problems before they ever get the chance to hire you or do business with your company. Here are some telling statements that clue you in to prospects who should never become customers:

1. "We can’t make a commitment to you, but please hold this deal open for us." It's never a good idea to reserve time or product for a customer who cannot give you a confirmed schedule or obtain the necessary approvals. If your customer won’t commit to you - you shouldn't commit either.

2. "We aren’t able to get your contract signed or cut a check before you start, but we’ll do it soon." Don't make the mistake of trusting a client to make good on verbal promises. Too many professionals can tell horror stories about completing work or delivering goods before realizing they weren't ever going to get paid. Remember that you have lost your greatest bargaining chip once your client has your work or your product in hand.

3. "I know we’ve met four times already, but we'd like to meet with you again to talk more about what you can do for us." Meeting with a prospect once, or twice, or even three times is usually necessary and productive. But when potential customers ask for multiple meetings and endless talk without committing to anything, you should be wary.

4. "We want to hire you, but we can't afford to pay you what you're asking. Will you help us for less?" Prospects who ask you to cut your prices by 20% or more obviously do not value you as a professional. They're just looking for rock bottom rates, and they don't care about quality or service. If they want to contract with the lowest bidder, let them. Just don't let it be you!

5. "We would like a discount because we can send you lots of business in the future." A deal in exchange for future referrals may seem like an acceptable tradeoff at first glance, but consider the implications. You'll be locked in to earning less on this deal and you have no guarantee of any return. More often than not, customers who request a "volume discount" never deliver on the volume.

6. "I know we’ve ignored your calls for a month, but now we need you to start tomorrow." Potential customers who disappear and then resurface with a crisis will probably behave exactly the same way at later dates. You don't want to work for someone who constantly translates their own lack of planning into your problem.

7. "We've hired people like you before, and none of them worked out." It's always tempting to think that you can be the one who will succeed where others have failed. Unfortunately, customers who complain that they can't find good help usually have no one to blame but themselves. They're demanding, unclear on their needs, or not willing to be flexible and make changes. You don't want to see your reputation ruined when you become the next person they complain about.

8. "I know what we need is not what you usually do, but we really need you to handle this for us." It can be appealing to take any sort of work a prospect offers you. But when you work on jobs you don't enjoy or lack experience in, they can sap your energy, distract you from your core business, and generate referrals for the wrong kind of work – creating a vicious cycle of underachievement.

Prospects that undervalue and take advantage of you don't deserve to become customers. Don’t ignore warning signs and allow them to hire you, because they can consume your time without payment, keep you trapped in under-earning, and hold you back from finding valuable, long-term customers who will truly appreciate the products or services you have to offer. It can be hard to let go of a prospect. But make sure you spend your energy pursuing only the best customers - and leave the rest to the competition. You don’t really want them anyway!

New Year... New Start!

It's snowing heavily today along the Front Range. Fresh white powder is hiding all the gray sludge that remained from our last storm, and watching that 'fresh start' occur in real-time outside the window got me thinking about 2008 and my own changes.

I always enjoy the holiday break and try to use the time to reassess my life, my priorities, my triumphs and my failures. A new year really is a new start - a cleansing of the old and welcoming of the new. I included a list of Questions to Ponder at the Year's End in my recent December newsletter, Ideas for Impact!, and I wanted to share them on my blog as well. So, here goes:

1. What are you grateful for? Gratitude is such a powerful emotion and it opens the doors to good things in life. Whether 2007 was a fantastic year or not, we all have a multitude of things to be thankful for. Ponder them and appreciate the positive people, things and events in your life.

2. What were the most significant events of 2007? Significant events can be wonderful or horrible, but we always learn from them - don't we? Think about the three turning points or epiphanies you experienced in 2007 and what you need to take away from those powerful events to become a better person.

3. What did you accomplish? Celebrate the joy of accomplishment! Pat yourself on the back and recognize the things you did right during the year.

4. What did you learn? As we walk through life, we are constantly being conditioned by our environment, our family, our friends, our job, etc... The end of the year is a great time to look back on learning experiences and make sure that you integrate new knowledge and skills into your everyday world.

5. What did you complete or release? Hopefully we are always growing and evolving - leaving old things behind and transforming into something fresh and new. Acknowledge the things you've completed during the year and rejoice in the negative areas of your life that have been released.

6. What still feels incomplete? It's important not to abandon everything when a new year begins, so remind yourself of unfinished business and make sure your goals for 2008 build on incomplete issues from 2007.

7. What were your biggest challenges, roadblocks or difficulties? We never enjoy looking back at difficulties, but, alas, that is often the only way to avoid repeating them. Ponder the challenges and failures of 2007 - and do your best to set yourself up for success in 2008.

8. How are you different this year than last? Every year we should see changes in ourselves. Think about the metamorphoses you have gone through. Keep the good changes and throw out the bad. Go into the New Year reading to live your best life and take on the world!