Most frequently heard question: Do you have a minute?
Actually, no, I don’t have a minute. Neither do you. But what do we say? “Sure.”
The response is automatic. We’re being polite. We really do want to help and we’re convinced (even if secretly) that we’ve got the right answers. But all the while, we’re frustrated because, no, we don’t have a minute. Not right now certainly.
How about trying this instead: No, I don’t have a minute right now. But, I do have 15 minutes later today (or tomorrow or next week). Can you stop by at 3 p.m., and we can talk?
This works. Almost every “have-a-minute” request can be scheduled later at a time when you’re able to focus your undivided attention. If the “have-a-munute” is likely to be complicated, suggest sending a talking points note so you’ll be prepared.
Marla Tabaka, the Successful Soloist blogger for Inc.com, offers three simple and exceptionally helpful tips for leaning to just say “no.”
You opened your business to make money and serve your customers. You’re not in business to “do” social media. But…. These days no business does business without a significant commitment to social media connections. So, you “get” a website. You “get” a blog. You “get” accounts for LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, Klout, Instagram, and the ubiquitous Facebook.
Social media management becomes a major time drain and you who always hated writing term papers in school find yourself scrambling to write blog posts. For every minute you’re managing social media, your clients are waiting for your return phone call. And, you’ve begun to swear.
If that sounds familiar, here are six tips to ensure social media helps you grow business, not kill it:
Key West Watch was named one of three runners-up in the annual McCormick Foundation New Media Women Entrepreneurs Initiative. The program, which awards grants to start-up companies owned by women, this week recognized four winners and three runners-up from a field of 227 applications.
Being a runner-up on this list is a very big deal. Competition for the grant program is fierce. To make it to that final round is pretty darn sweet. I’ve worked on the Key West business plan since 2007, when it was nothing more than a napkin and some scribbles. I’ve believed in it, and to have that plan recognized as one that’s got the legs to make it, is, well, way cool.
The top four projects split $56,000 in grants; we remaining three get bragging rights, and clearly, I am taking advantage.
This puts Key West Watch in amazing company with six other women-owned projects Projects like these demonstrate the diversity, power and effectiveness of women in business. It is a humbling experience to share a list with them. (And, I’ve invited them all to Key West next year for an anniversary celebration.”
Read more about the awards and the winners.
Here’s the list of winners from yesterday’s news release:
The winners are:
ClearHealthCosts.com, an ambitious effort launched by former New York Times editor Jeanne Pinder to do what many thought couldn’t be done: bring transparency to health-care costs by helping consumers compare significant variations in local prices for the same medical procedures.
Symbolia, a tablet magazine spearheaded by media strategist Erin Polgreen that will blend investigative journalism with comics and illustration.
Carolina Public Press, a non-profit, in-depth, investigative news site for western North Carolina, launched by journalist Angie Newsome.
The Seattle Lesbian, a daily news site started by two journalists, Sarah Toce and Charlene Strong, who aspire to roll their initial success with news and traffic to a national network of sites.
Runners-up included:
Florida Voices, a digital opinion and commentary project to capture the conversations on state issues.
Key West Watch, a web, print and social media initiative to connect off-island Key West homeowners to news and public policy decisions that affect island life.
The FilAm, an online magazine for Filipinos in New York.
A final Midwest Winter: The view from our deck is beautiful in every season.
More on the ad rep in just a minute…
I bet half of my friends and acquaintances think we’re already in Key West. Wish we were, but we’re spending one more snow-and-wind-chill winter in Rockford, IL, though there’s been (thankfully) precious little of both this season.
We’re winding up two decades of “stuff,” from getting the house sold to disentangling from jobs and projects. I’ve been working on the back-end of the business plans, ensuring Key West Watch has the architecture it needs.
I’m also looking for an advertising/marketing sales rep to join me for the start-up. The successful candidate for this contract position will (1) embrace the possibilities of the web world and its digital offspring and still believe that print works; (2) be a news and information junkie; (3) be able to close the deal; and (4) believe that credibility in news, advertising, marketing and services is the foundation of a profitable operation.
If that be you or someone you know, email your cover letter, resume and contact info (keywestwatch@cunningnet.com). If you’re the right candidate, you’ll know how to tell the tale.
We’ll make a quick trip to Key West in March, come back here to pack it up — and assuming we get this house sold, we’ll arrive with the moving van this summer. Key West Watch goes soft launch in third quarter and will be live with the arrival of season.
Oh, how we love shopping. Think not? Take a few minutes to ponder this consumer nuttiness — the “out of the box” or “unboxing” experience.
I swear to all the retail gods, we’ve made an art of describing, experiencing and reviewing a product just as it comes out of the box. Sleek, smooth, enticing. That ah-moment new car smell. The buttery swish of a leather shoe that’s just so. The Apple iWhatever. Even the new white cotton skivvies we had the clerk roll up and stick in a bag.
One of the whoppers we tell ourselves is that not shopping ensures we will assuredly become “healthy, wealthy and wise.” We believe that Ben Franklin exhortation because somehow we think we should. Some sort of holdover Puritan guilt, I guess.
We lament the credit-card swiping culture that wants three flat screen televisions, a dozen pairs of shoes and unlimited downloads from Kindle and iTunes. We shake our heads at teenagers who wander the malls. At the Sunday afternoon lookers in the Anderson Automotive lots. At the lookie-lous driving from one Open House to another. We really go nuts over pet parents who spend small fortunes on doggie — and now cat — costumes.
(Sidebar: There is a difference, of course, between shopping and buying. Shopping’s more the process leading to buying. Buying is pulling out the cash and wrapping up the box. Not all shopping requires buying. All buying requires at least some shopping. I had to explain that to an irritable hubby several years ago.)
Back to the point. We love our shopping, especially the kind that ends in buying so we can glory in the “unboxing.” Now there’s proof that if we shop-and-buy we can jump start the economy, get the country growing again — and, well, shop some more.
We’ve known forever that consumers are the foundation for 60-70 percent of the U.S. economy. Whether we’re buying cars and houses or those white cotton skivvies, it’s the “little people” — the 99 percenters — who are the engine. We buy and those companies, big and small, make and making means money, which means gotta run the factory, staff the front desk, fly the planes … You get the picture.
James Livingston, a Rutgers University history professor is my new econ hero. Here’s what he says his research proves: “If our goal is to repair our damaged economy, we should bank on consumer culture — and that entails a redistribution of income away from profits toward wages, enabled by tax policy and enforced by government spending.”
The regular dude and dudette. And the government. Government spending and consumer spending are the real drivers of economic growth. Oh, I can see the frothing now….
A proposition: Give up the frugal-til-we-atrophy charade. Go buy something. Shop ’til you drop. Save the economy. Because it doesn’t sure as heck doesn’t look like the “private corporations” are going to do anything except hoard their cash.
Let the frothing begin. The rest of us will be at the mall.
