After getting frustrated by the way we vendors can be treated either at conferences or when in the prospecting stages, I thought I’d throw out a few reasons to be nice to the people who are soliciting your business…

1. You’re a vendor, too. Some part of your company is after some sort of sale, and what goes around comes around.
2. Price has a lot to do with convenience. If you want to do business with a vendor, you BET the price they calculate will have something to do with the degree to which you’ll be a pain-in-the-***. And this isn’t immoral–time is money and if you make a vendor’s life difficult then they’ll waste time working with you. They deserve to be compensated when you’re wasting their time.
3. Even if you don’t need them now and may never be able to pay them in the future, they may very well be able to assist you in some five minute problem down the road that they otherwise wouldn’t give you the time of day for. All because you were nice way back when.
4. Vendors are people, too. Yes, really. Even salespeople are people.
5. Being a vendor is making a living. You may not sell to people, but vendors aren’t innately evil. There’s a big difference between telemarketers calling during dinner and a vendor soliciting your attention after paying $1500 to attend YOUR conference for a day. By paying your dues they at least deserve a couple minutes of your time.
6. Vendors serve a purpose. I know, it’s hard to believe, but every once in a while someone is selling something that WILL make your life easier, your business more productive, and drive your own profits. Low and behold their company is actually in business for a reason! And maybe you’re the perfect fit.
7. Small companies and big companies, titles or no titles–we’re all worthy of a few words. You may get excellent service from a large company. A small company may enjoy the rare business of a large company and thus exceed the expectations of the large organization. We get wrapped up too often by titles and organization sizes. So what if you’re a director at Verizon and he’s a salesperson for Mom & Pop LLP…it doesn’t mean that you’re making more money or are any better qualified to perform your job. People deserve respect.
8. You didn’t know everyone once. At networking events it’s easy to stick by those you know. Think back to that painful time when you didn’t know anyone. That vendor over there is new to the area, new to the job, etc. When they say hello they may not even want your business–maybe you can be the one who introduces them to a few people…they’d never forget you for that.
9. Even the competition is good to know. When you get to know and build relationships with your competitors, more than likely there will be a time when they’ll actually recommend you as a better fit.
10. The next time you’re at a networking event, that vendor may be the popular one who gets to introduce you to some people.

This morning I listened to one of the local podcasts I’ve been experimenting with, published by a Maryland newspaper called The Business Monthly. In the most recent show they interviewed Edward McMillan, the author of a new book titled Policies & Procedures to Prevent Fraud and Embezzlement. McMillan brought up some strikingly easy ways to prevent accounting fraud that every business should consider. I can only imagine that most people are like myself and have given little consideration to fraud taking places under their noses. The truth of the matter is that, regardless of the likeliness of it happening, there are a few basic steps that can be taken to prevent it. I highly recommend listening to the interview (starts at 11:15 on the podcast), but here’s a summary of McMillan’s over-the-air recommendations for fraud-preventive practices:

1. Have your business’s bank statements mailed directly to you (the owner / principal) rather than directly to the company or the accountant/bookkeeper. Take a couple minutes each month to quickly look through the deposited checks to make sure that everything seems legit. Then, pass them along to your accountant or bookkeeper.
2. Consider “bank lockbox” for mailed invoice remittances. In other words, for a small fee, you can send a return envelope with your invoices that will allow your customer to send their payment directly to your bank (though this remains transparent to your customer). This restricts the ability for someone to deposit company-directed funds into an account with a similar or identical name at another bank.
3. Consider a “Positive Pay” service for all checks/payroll. This fairly common bank service enables your check writing activities to synchronize with your financial institution’s record of your account. This prevents common fraud tactics like someone copying a check and attempting to deposit it twice, or someone depositing a vendor’s check into an account with a slightly different payee name. Everything about the outgoing check will be monitored to alert you when things don’t match up.
4. Consider having two-signers on all checks. A second pair of eyes makes it less likely for an altered check to get out, and makes forgery more difficult.
5. Use direct-deposit for payroll. Direct deposit makes it very difficult for someone to put a nonexistent person on the payroll. Most people who create fake people on a payroll will use a check cashing service because there’s no audit trail when they cash these checks. However, with direct deposit, any attempts to funnel money elsewhere will be tracked…thus it’s much less likely for someone to attempt.

McMillan went on with ideas for how to approach situations where fraud might be a question, and the role of a CPA/employee in the finances of one’s business. This is all important advice for me to consider, so I thought I ought to share it with some others who could equally benefit.

Last week I was lucky enough to see Chuck Geschke, a co-founder of Adobe Systems, speak at Loyola College in Maryland. Not only was he passionate and insightful, but he offered some lessons that I found particularly valuable. His main message was that if you treat your customers, vendors, and employees with respect and kindness then they won’t come back to bite you when you need them. However, one of his specific analogies I found to be particularly helpful immediately afterwards. I’m likely going to butcher its explanation, but please don’t let it reflect poorly on him. He explained that

Engineers can often be classified as Arrow Shooters, Scouts, and Road Pavers

Arrow Shooters are the ones who see an idea in the distance as a worthy target. They’re the visionaries who recognize a possibility for a new product but aren’t necessarily the best suited to determine how to get there or whether there will be financial rewards in the end.

Scouts are the people capable of surveying the market, considering what resources need to be assembled, and determining if there’s a viable path to the target. They wouldn’t know where to look if it weren’t for the arrow shooters, and they’re not necessarily the folks who can dig in and make the product happen.

Road Pavers are those who get their hands dirty with the real development. With a little bit of the overall vision and some general landscape of the situation, they’ll get you from point A to the target. And if they’re a great road paver they’ll be able to step one foot in front of another until they get things done, on schedule and on budget.

Mr. Geschke used this analogy to explain one of the ways that Continue reading…

Running a business is about making decisions. One of the choices I’ve been grappling with is in which areas of my business to increase staff size as our workload increases. Frequently I have to decide which initiatives to focus on in a given week, month, or quarter. In the shower I realized another way to think about my quandary: less cold water.

In my shower I have the most basic sort of faucet handles: one knob for hot and one knob for cold. The more you turn each of them, the more pressure you get of the hot or cold–pretty simple. While I can’t speak from experience, I’m guessing that most people adjust their faucet to a familiar position, make sure the temperature and pressure are all right, and then hop in.

What happens next demonstrates to me that the most intuitive application is not always the best use of the faucets. At this point it’s not usually about the pressure, it’s about getting just the right temperature as fluctuations arise. If it’s too cold the most logical thing is to turn the hot knob to make it hotter. But that’s not always the best approach; after all, turning up the hot means you’re going to run out of hot water sooner than before.

Back to the business scenario, Continue reading…

You never know what it will be that captures the public eye, as pointed out in this Washington Post article about Chris Bliss’ juggling act. A video of Bliss’ juggling caught on through email and blogs, bringing him an insane amount of attention and potential gigs. The only problem was that he was no longer interested in juggling.

Perhaps many of us writers and businessmen are hoping for the one thing that will (favorably) capture the public’s eye and send us to quick fame. Things like the Million Dollar Homepage and the forehead guy have taken on a bizarre media following. However, the question, as addressed in the article, is whether the thing that garners attention is what we want attention for? We don’t want to be pegged forever as one-hit wonders (like a certain actor in Home Alone…).

As such I’m trying to temper my urge to write about every exciting thought that comes to my mind here. One of the articles will one-day spread, but I hope to leave thought-out posts here, rather than techno-rants. I could repeat what’s spreading around, but I’d rather not continue the tradition of the blog-as-echo-chamber effect.

Soon you’ll find some more articles, in particular on personal privacy and email management. In the mean time, I highly recommend 43folders Inbox Zero series and Inside the Marketing Mind’s advice on creating a proposal.

Every once in a while I’ll read something that gives me a swift (but helpful) kick in the butt. Such was the case with Kathy Sierra’s post on the Creating Passionate Users Blog: “How to be an Expert.” She points out that in order to be an expert one needs to be dedicated enough to make it through both the fun elements and the difficult details of their field. Sierra argues that neuroscience suggests that the truly successful are not merely “naturals” who started at a young age but are the people who were willing to suck it up and fight through the challenges. She points out:

Most of us want to practice the things we’re already good at, and avoid the things we suck at. We stay average or intermediate amateurs forever.

Continue reading…

If I had to point to one reason why business is good, I’d guess it’s because of planting lots of seeds. Very rarely has anything been immediately successful for me, but taking my time without pushing too hard has proven to work. As this has been an important lesson for me and as I’d like part of this blog to focus on business ideas, I want to share a little bit.

When I started my business I knew no one: my family was elsewhere, my previous local jobs were in government (the government is another world, let me just say), and my friends were too young to really help. So I did what I did in school to make friends–join lots of groups and volunteer your time. At first it was difficult to walk into room trying to sell myself, knowing no one, and being unable to offer much in return. But over time those casual acquaintances turned into real relationships.

Specifically, I Continue reading…

A blog is something that can start on a whim, but in the end it takes discipline and the support of an audience. I’ve been writing online for over five years now on a personal website, but in the last few months I’ve been gearing up to write on the more technical and business-oriented topics that have interested me in the last couple years. By “gearing up” I mean that I’ve researched and, in turn, been humbled by my peers. Some things I considered writing about that were already well-covered:

• I already write a tip and tool every month, but more regular entries here still wouldn’t compete with the likes of Lifehacker or Steve Bass.
• In my personal site I’ve occasionally tackled business reflections, but I have hardly the experience or sagacity of Guy Kawasaki or Art Jacoby.
• And, by the nature of my career I considered titling this site “rockmyword.com” and showing off the area where I’m arguably most expert–Microsoft Office. However there are many sites on all-things-Office, such as Office Zealot and that of my colleague and coworker Shauna Kelly.

So why write?

Last week I was working with a client, going through Office tricks… Continue reading…