Faire une Fete

24 Usable Hours in Everyday

2010-10-07T19:28:00.000-04:00

Empire Records played a huge role in my life as a teenager. I wanted Deb's edginess, with the shaved head and dark, twisty side. I wanted Gina's voice and sex appeal. Most of all, I wanted to be Corey, with the perfect plaid skirt and the boundless energy, which as we learn, is supported by a nasty little addiction to speed. What I didn't recognize at the time is that going for 24 hours of the day is not a sustainable way to live or work.

Despite growing up and accepting the boundaries on time spent awake, I still admonish myself for anything less than about 90% productivity, which has made the past 6 months difficult. When I relocated, I assumed that I would indeed be able to balance a full time job, training for marathons and building my own business. (And no, I don't take speed. A lot of coffee and sugar, but no speed.) I'll let you guess what of those efforts has slipped. I am still gainfully employed, so there goes 40 hours a week. I am back to running full time after an unexpected surgery this winter, so there go another 12 hours a week to training. I do sleep 6 hours a night, so subtract another 42 hours a week. Oh, did I mention that I'm taking Chemistry with a Lab for another 7 hours a week in class, plus studying time?

Obviously, the building of my business has slipped. Every Friday at around 2 pm, I vow that this weekend, I am going to catch up. I am going to write a blog entry, build my Twitter profile and start networking. I am going to send out prospect letters and locate leads. And every Sunday at about 5, I am frustrated to find that it's time to plan meals, review my schedule and get ready for another week.

So my question to fellow do-it-allers is this: How did you/do you balance that start up phase of your business where you need to seemingly have an extra few hours every day? Is it just a matter of rearranging priorities? Is it less sleep? Is it some combination of luck and faith when you leave the full time job behind to focus on your business?

And for those who haven't seen the movie, if you're 20 to 40, I imagine you'll appreciate it.

http://www.amazon.com/Empire-Records-Remix-Special-Fan/dp/B00008WJEQ/ref=pd_sim_m_1

Pls + to Oct.enl #1 Tx

2010-05-06T20:09:00.003-04:00

Communication is a skill, not a given. The title of this blog post comes from an actual email. In its entirety.

In The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger, the protagonist struggles with a boss who is a poor communicator at best. Miranda, the boss from hell, leaves cryptic messages at all hours of the night, from which Andrea is supposed to glean action items. What appears clear and easy-to-follow to Miranda might as well be in Morse Code for Andrea. Unfortunately, communication mishaps are not reserved for novels alone. Almost anyone who works for or with anyone has experienced their fair share of Miranda-isms.

Working with clients is a daily dose of truncated words and symbols. Whether the misalignment really is a crossing of wires or the result of us hearing what we want to, the client service field is wrought with misunderstandings. Sometimes we have time to correct for these; sometimes, however, the result is a major mistake and an unhappy client.

So how do we decipher the spoken and unspoken codes of our clients? For those of us who have suffered through management training, cliches abound about facilitative listening, seeking to understand and testing your assumptions. While I don't put much stock in the accoutrements in which these ideas are often dressed, their basis is strong. So what's a client facing person to do?

Ask questions early and often. Time is your friend when it comes to misunderstandings.
Remember that while the client may not know what they want, they certainly know what they DON'T want: show pictures, give examples and seek honest feedback.
You provide a service to a client that they have chosen not to do themselves. That said, clients are often experts in their own area, so respect and incorporate their expertise. Taking an architecture class in college does not an architect make.

Many thanks to Cake Wrecks (http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com) for daily examples of why communication is key to successful client service.

Spring has Sprung

2010-04-23T12:43:00.001-04:00

After a mild but busy winter in Vermont, it's time to get to work for event season! I am happily settled into my new job, which provides financial security, but also the flexibility to continue to build my business. I look forward to a great spring of relationship building and event execution!

I recently attended the Emerging Issues Conference at UNC's School of Government, where master's students presented their capstone research projects. One capstone of particular salience was Ann Roper's, a second year student with extensive non-profit experience, which focused on the efficacy (or lack thereof) of e-Philanthropy. Ann looked at Goodsearch.com, a web browser powered by Yahoo, that donates 1 cent to a self-designated non-profit for every search. While this is ostensibly a creative way to micro-fundraise, Ann found that for most non-profits, Goodsearch.com yielded little to no revenue. With 90,000 non-profits registered at Goodsearch.com and the option to only choose one, it's no surprise that the benefits are diffuse. However, Ann's findings raise an interesting question about benefit-cost analysis for free fundraising services. Is it worth it to take the time to set up these free profiles, on the off chance they yield $50 dollars, or are we better served focusing on more time consuming and more lucrative fundraisers?

This is an issue that Beca at Hands On (www.hodr.org) and I have also touched on over the past few months. The nature of Hands On's volunteer base necessitates some creative fundraising efforts. Because the volunteer base is both geographically and demographically diverse, standard approaches to fundraising don't always work. Beca and I have toyed with different ideas for micro-fundraisers that volunteers can execute in their home areas. Coming up with a model for this, however, has been difficult. First, the diffuse nature of the organization often suffers a name recognition problem. While most people have heard of United Way or the Red Cross and will give without much hesitation in a time of disaster, spreading the word about Hands On can be more difficult. Second, like most efforts at outsourcing, setting up a model and sending it to volunteers is not the end of Beca or Andrew's job. They still have to provide oversight and management, and like Goodsearch.com, the revenue may not warrant the effort.

Still, I see creative attempts at microfundraising abounding. Last night, Magic Hat Brewing Company (www.magichat.net) in Burlington, VT held a "twitter-crawl," where teams followed clues to complete a bar crawl in downtown Burlington. The fundraiser raised money for COTS (http://www.cotsonline.org). While shopping in Greenwich earlier in the week, I picked up a flyer at Lilly Pullizer (http://www.lillypulitzer.com) to shop for a cause. Lilly is offering to donate a percentage of sales from private fundraising parties. These efforts may not supplant the need for larger fundraisers, but raise some money and awareness for the many non-profits in our communities that provide much-needed support.

What other creative micro-fundraising ideas have you seen? How successful have they been for your organization?