She brings extensive knowledge and experience in spiritual healing, and a profound love for the business-building process. Our clients who work with her rave about her ability to get to the heart of the matter and help them get results.

In this short interview she surprised me. She and Jason had been cooking up something behind my back and it made me want to enroll into our own program. I know that sounds weird, but it’s true. Thankfully I get help from Yollana and Jason all the time.

Here she is. I think you’ll see why we rave about her.

I made this interview to go with the free learning series we’re currently doing. I just sent out the second lesson, but you can still get that, and the first lesson, if you register for the series.

About Business Revenue Models

The first two lessons of this free learning series were about The Stages of Business Development (there are three of them for micro-businesses) and Sequence and Flow (a more compassionate version of what is commonly called the Meat Grinder… er… Product Funnel.)

The third lesson is about Revenue Models. I’ll be sending it out tomorrow, Friday. You can get the first two lessons right now, and be on the list for the third lesson tomorrow.

To get these lessons, just click on the faucet:

I can be at the peak of my attention in a conversation about how to organize a project, or just finished a critical piece and need him to do the next to keep the momentum going, and he just doesn’t have the energy to continue or do his next part . . . could be that days go by.

Hey, Don’t Leave Now!

It’s like turning on a lamp to read, you just get to a juicy part of the story and the light goes out. Then when the light comes back on, you’ve lost your place and the tension buildup is gone and the scene has its pizzazz.

As you might suspect, I’m the kind of person who takes a roll-up-your-sleeves, get-going, hours-go-by-before-realizing-it sort of approach to accomplishing things. I’m a dog with a bone type, in other words.

The Aha! Moment of Identifying Our Differences

Mark and I set up a phone meeting the other day to get some clarity on a new class we want to organize and promote in the next six months. Well, you know how it goes when there are things that just need to be talked about before you talk about what you’ve agreed to talk about. Ha!

We got off on strategic alliances, social media connections, individual vs corporate alliances, how many possible avenues we have to go in, where we should focus. How to reach greater numbers of people . . . there’s so much to do . . . enough tweeting already . . .

One thing led to another, and I commented on how many overwhelming personal events have happened at Heart of Business in the last year, out of our control things that have slowed down our growth progress each time I think we’re getting a toehold. Mark kept pressing me to be clearer, he didn’t know what I was meaning. (Love that, even if it’s difficult sometimes.)

Eventually we hit on it. What was buggin’ me was his general work style. We both realized that Mark’s a zoom in, do a couple of hours of intensely focused work and then buzz off sort of worker. He can only concentrate on something for that long at a time. Whereas I tend to marathon with an acute need to realize completed goals. Give me a reason to check off my to-do list and I’m a happy camper.

The tension wasn’t about Mark being constantly distracted or challenging life events, but rather him having a very different work rhythm than me. Aha!

Collaborate Successfully Using Your Different Work Styles

Of course each of our first impulses was to ask, “Well how can each of us adjust our styles to better work together.”

“Wait, no,” I said, “We don’t want to try to dilute our individual working styles. We need to take advantage of them.”

Realizing in that moment, that neither style was better than the other, that they have both brought each of us success in different ways, allowed immediate appreciation to flow into the conversation.

Suddenly, I didn’t feel critical of Mark’s “constant distraction,” and he could understand why I was feeling frustrated.

We were able to acknowledge that Mark is great at getting things to happen quickly in the short run and that I’m great at developing longer term strategies and accomplishing them. And we need both.

Getting to That Aha! Moment

You may be working solo or with employees in your business. Either way, remember to look beyond your immediate work environment for places where you are in collaborative work relationships. Even if you’re working alone right now, you are always working with your clients, customers, patients. And all of you have different working styles.

• Get conscious of your own work style. You don’t do your business in a vacuum. How you operate impacts those around you. You need to understand yourself here if you’re going to successfully work with other’ styles.

• Before judging another’s work style as problematic, learn how and why they’re working for that person. When I identified Mark’s high and low energy behaviors as a natural work cycle for him, I was able to open my mind to solutions rather than simply being frustrated. I was also then able to be more accepting of my work style, appreciating how much I love getting lost in time while doing creative projects.

• Talk about your work styles with your business partner, client, or employee. Mark and I have been dancing around this issue for months without identifying it. It was much easier to blame the inconsistencies on outside events. Take the time to acknowledge your styles, what works for each of you and what doesn’t.

• Capitalize on your differences. Don’t dilute your differences by trying to compromise too much, or by trying to be someone you’re not. Consider how you can each accommodate for your differences. Mark’s energy bursts, his constantly moving attentions make him a great social media maven. 

He can be tweeting one moment and writing a promotional email in the next. Yeah!, ‘cuz I suck at being in several places at once. I can be the one to trudge through larger projects that take more time, concentration, and consistent attention.

We all have different work styles. Let’s celebrate that and stop wasting time and energy wanting someone to be different. There is so much to gain by identifying our different work flows and methods. If we honor the ways different styles can be used, suddenly our efforts multiply in efficiency. What one person is not good at another can do well because they work differently.

How’s your P & L doing? Got Balance Sheet?

Finance, in that big F sort of way, has not screamed for attention at its current feverish pitch any other time in my life, which is almost half a century long, and probably not in yours either. Which means it’s safe to say, our little personal Fs are bawling like babies, in that dysfunctional family solidarity sort of way.

Creating concrete systems for tracking each aspect of Heart of Business’s financial flow is on the top of my infrastructure-renovation list. But even more importantly, once that’s in place, is to become intimately familiar with how to take the information that those systems generate and begin making fully accountable, measured, and strategic business and marketing decisions.

I talked with Jessica Reagan Salzman briefly today, inspired owner of Behind the Scenes Bookkeeping services, and she stuffed our current entrepreneurial reality in a nutshell. “I’ve always believed that we need to run our businesses by the books, but now more than ever, those who’ve been marginally successful managing there money from the hip, need to rely on their financial books for guidance.” As I listened, my head was nodding up and down like a back seat bobble-head.

A Welcome Step Toward Business Transparency

Heart of Business has been amazingly successful for the last eight years with minimal attention to its numbers. Although tracking finances can be tedious and even anxiety provoking, not doing it ultimately limit success, and particularly growth. Someone on this team has to get intimately involved with interpreting the numbers at least monthly. First and last, whoever is involved in major decision making has to find support and rationale for them financially.

When I imagine the business’s financial numbers at our fingertips helping direct us during decision-making meetings and project-building efforts, a peacefulness falls over me. In my mind, Heart of Business’s operations would find a peacefulness never before felt in its life. Once financial operations become central, all the other aspects of the business–creative product generation, marketing, teaching, etc.–can settle into a productive rhythm based on responsiveness rather than reactive crises management.

What are those Financial Pieces Needing Places?

In businesses I’ve started and run in the past from a massage business, to a naturopathic clinic, to an editing business, I’ve always done the basic bookkeeping. I started on ledger paper many years ago creating the crudest line item categories for payments and a list of the clients providing revenue. I made myself learn Quickbooks, including managing an inventory and payroll taxes the next time around. I just about went bald doing it, but I took great comfort in balancing the books and knowing exactly how much our inventory was worth on any given day. In that business, I was fortunate to have an office right next door to our accountant. If you’re wondering, I learned everything I know about bookkeeping on the job, out of desperation.

1. You need a bookkeeping system beyond bank statements and credit card statements. What ever your level of sophistication, you need to understand and record money coming in and money going out. That may be as simple as hiring a bookkeeper and doing exactly what they tell you to do with your statements and check register, which is what Mark’s done for a while. Even if you do that, you’re still responsible for understanding how to read monthly reports and make decisions from them, which Mark has not really ever done, yet.

2. Understand what reports matter and run them monthly. Besides the traditional profit and loss statement and balance sheets, you need to consider what other reports are important to understanding your business’s financial health. If you have products, it’s helpful to know how many of what have sold. Is it up or down from last year, last month? You may want to track revenue based on various marketing campaigns to know if one works better then another. If you have an ezine subscription set up, is there a correlation to increased subscriptions, to purchases? There are many ways to measure your financial progress, you just need to decide what’s most appropriate for your goals and make it a priority.

3. With the real numbers in mind, you need to develop a yearly budget. “A budget, yuck! I’m my own boss now, I don’t need to deal with that much detail . . .” After being responsible for creating a $400K budget for a department at a medical school that included the college’s bookstore, I’m convinced that not having one is as detrimental as having a rudderless sailboat. You can grow and experiment, guess and risk, with money you see in your accounts, but you can’t plan. Eventually, you risk losing everything you’ve built. When you spend money over and over while chasing one good idea after another, suddenly there isn’t money for the rent, or your employee, or . . . and you’re caught with your belt buckle grazing your ankles.

4. To develop a budget, you need to have a working yearly marketing plan. Starting budget numbers come from comparing last year’s costs and revenues and projecting how you think you’ll do this year coupled with new marketing ideas, creative projects, and expected revenue increases. You also need to consider upcoming expenses you know you’ll have. That could be for things like seminars to hone your skills or office equipment upgrades. Remember, once you have a budget then you can manipulate the money as the year plays out. You can move sums of money from one designated area to another as you adjust plans throughout the year.

What If Finance Tracking is Your Weak Area?

If finances are kin to the devil for you, hire someone you can trust to interpret your finances and commit to meeting with them monthly and making enough effort to be able to understand their interpretations. If you don’t have the money to hire someone, find a fellow entrepreneur who enjoys finances and who will hold your hand as you face your boogeyman.

I know dealing with all the details required to achieve fiscal responsibility may feel restrictive and time consuming when there are so many other things to take care of like serving your clients and being creative. But once they’re running smoothly in a sturdy system, you’ll feel freer than you’ve ever felt in your business. It will show you gratitude with more stable revenue that grows at the pace and to the extent you want it to.

In the End

It’s about continual tracking, decision-making, implementation, and assessment. The more conscious we are, the more successful we’ll be. The more useful the systems put in place to hold the information and energy flow, the more likely we’ll all be able to stir clear of a crises management routine. Crises always happen, but the blows are so much softer when systems are in place to absorb the shock.

Operate by your books. It does a business good!

Although Mark and Holly have embraced my pleas to put more stable financial, marketing, reporting, and project management, and other administrative  systems in place, it’s been really difficult to break the crisis pattern of operation that born of the necessity to get a small business generating revenue quickly. It’s sort of been like trying to secure tent stakes in gale force winds actually.

Ok, maybe I exaggerate, but these gusts of ever more attractive growth possibilities, and a series of unexpected events, have challenged my charge as Infrastructure Queen, let alone the business’s forward momentum. We’ve got to have solid systems to handle sales growth, product creation, and curriculum development, yet we have to be actively marketing and creating to keep the revenue flowing in, and there are only so many hours in a day. You know the story.

Just When You Think There’s an Opening to Get it Done . . .

Thankfully Mark, Holly, and the twins are back home in Portland, we’re clearly still not in Kansas anymore Toto. Holly is doing the mom thing now, and Mark is emotionally torn between his new role as dad and taking care of the business that  so needs him back full-time.

When the number of obstacles couldn’t have gotten more absurd, Mark got sick just as were beginning to regroup and strategize our efforts. He was beside himself in frustration and disappointment and, well, and I was on the verge of breaking under the pressure to hold more in the business for even longer. That was a couple of days ago . . .

Surprise, then two days later, I got sicker than I’ve been in years. Still am as I write. Holy moley Batman, now what? Remember that high school football game cheer: “Push ‘em back, push ‘em back, waaaaay back! Goooooo Wolfpack” (We’ll that was one of ours anyway. )

This parade of obstacles that keep raising their big ol’ heads has been quite a test of our mettle as a team, but they have only drawn us closer and made us more determined to take them in stride with deep acceptance.

Taking the Electric Screwdriver to the Bed Frames

Mark says to me this week, looking for fresh approaches to the business, “What would you do if this was your business?” Whew, no little questions here. In the same conversation he asked me, “If Heart of Business were a million dollar business, what would we need to do differently?” How could I not bring up the “I” word in both cases. I am the appointed queen of that domain, aren’t I.

I was overtaken by a silly image of a long line of empty bed frames catching musical mattresses that were shifting about randomly. I said to Mark, “If you already have the bed frames in place, you can move the mattresses around as needed. Having the framework in place allows for easy movement and fluid organizing. If we put the frames in place before buying the mattresses, none of us would have to hold each new heavy mattress alone while the other urgently struggled to build a new frame.” Lousy metaphor except for the “you made your bed, now you must . . .” You know how it goes.

The question is, however, how do we shift the pattern and get ahead in the frame building part of the business without compromising our revenue generating efforts.

Were talkin’ business culture shift here. Heart of Business must move from reactive to proactive when it comes to financial decisions, project management, and marketing. Because I’m the new kid with a great aversion to cramming for exams and all such last minute efforts, I’ve ended up with the electric screwdriver in my hand.

Ok Mark, I say, but if I’m in charge of the power tools then you’ll need to hand me the screws and help hold the bed frame pieces together while we work.

Enough with the Bed Metaphor, What Does Infrastructure Mean?

Remember going to Office Depot when you first started your business? How exciting it was to buy a phone, bookkeeping software, file folders, pens, paperclips–ah, the visions of order you would create. Remember finding a domain name, setting up your email, and creating your first website, developing a subscribers email list?

Yea, and then somewhere along the way the phone cord gets wrapped around your neck, you can’t remember where you put that tax form, you forgot to warn your printer that you need books printed in one week for your upcoming seminar, and sticky notes are growing around your desk like kudzu. You simply can’t keep gaining forward momentum if your systems of organization and information aren’t developing at the same pace.

That’s kinda where we are, only further down the road maybe. Here’s a few places we’re working on. Any sound familiar?:

• Organize systems for easy financial tracking–incoming and outgoing. Assess monthly balance sheets and profit and loss statements. Generate monthly goals.
• Run regular reports that track things like number of ezine and forum subscribers and unsubscribers, product and services sales, website traffic, client demo- and psychographics, so that we can make marketing changes that work.
• Create a how-to manual for all the facets of our operation so that someone can step in and take on an aspect of the business as needed. This includes implementing systematic approaches to all of our online marketing and services programs like AWeber, AMember, 1ShoppingCart, PayPal, Highrise, Basecamp, etc.
• Develop a stronger system for managing contacts and communicating about them within the business.
• Create a project management system, including a year-out plan, that will prevent production crisis

“Ok Then, Let’s Get It Built and Move on Already!”

So Mark asks me after I bring up the “I” word again, “Ok, so do you think we can get it done by the end of January?” (It’s January 20 at that moment.)

“No.” (Are you kidding me, I’m thinking!)

“Middle of February?” he asks.

I said, yes. The meeting ended, and I was left mulling over what just got agreed upon. Middle of February. Then it hit me. This is part of the culture change issue. Building infrastructure, like relationships, doesn’t happen, and then you go on to live a happily-ever-after life. It is a never ending effort. The success comes in having more bed frames than mattresses.

Don’t be fooled into complacency around your business’s infrastructure, especially if it is growing.

How Are You Managing Your Infrastructure?

It’s an ongoing balance. Building infrastructure requires resources, and gaining resources requires infrastructure. In the midst of growing pains, we at Heart of Business are actively seeking that balance regardless of the big ol’ obstacles that keeping coming up.

How about you? I would love to hear stories of how you strive for balanced systems development and revenue  generation in your business. If you work with others in your business, how do you problem solve these types of issues? How do you allocate tasks? And if you’re a million dollar business, (congratulations!) how has attention to infrastructure helped get you there?

Here’s the introduction to this series, including a list of all Insider View posts. Enjoy. Learn. Comment.

The Unknown Buildup

It was just intended to be another random check-in. However . . .

I went into the conversation emotionally tight, expecting to feel and see (we video conference with iChat), yet again, Mark’s exhaustion, impatience, and seeming unavailability. Going in, I was weary from a felt lack of connection–consistent, reliable connection. Weary from sporadic, unpredictable email responses and returned phone calls. Weary from steeling myself from my needs as an employee, a co-creator in the business.

Mark is not a mind reader. He’s worrying and attending to more pressing issues. In fact, right in front of me Samuel begins to cry on Mark’s lap because his diaper is wet and leaking. In between, we do our best to solve little fires like website issues, client needs, and filling the Opening the Moneyflow course.

I get tighter, feeling even more like something to deal with and cross off the list.

Torn between our agreed expectation to share and communicate openly with integrity and my not wanting to need something from someone who himself is spent, I drift farther from the conversation and deeper into the unspoken problem. “I’m needing more support to do my job well; I should be able to take care of it all myself; but wait, this business requires intimate cooperation; yeah, but this is only temporary, let it go; but what about . . . ” Who’s steering this vessel!

Yikes!, Hanging up, running, hiding . . . they all sound like good options in that moment. Oh, but to my horror and relief, my better self jumps in, grabs the wheel, and makes a bumbling attempt to say what is going on. Ugh.

“Hey, I need some attention out here. I miss your involvement. How ’bout a little feedback or explanation? I need someone to play with here.”

Mark immediately showed up, confirming over and over again that if I bring something to his attention, however controversial or challenging, he becomes humbly and authentically present. In this way he is heroically reliable, consistent, and predictable.

The tension broke. The connection happened. Tears dropped, and empathy defined the moment . . .

So Whose Lesson Is This?

Although my heart had reopened, we really hadn’t done anything to shift our rudderless story–that we are doomed to helpless chaos only to be repaired once Mark and Holly complete their adoption and get back to Dodge. We’ve had 51 days to develop a solid makeshift container for the business and, with the help of this story, haven’t.

The lesson is not about employees needing to speak up, even though that’s critical to building trust within a team. The lesson is not about employers needing to be mind readers for their employees.

The lesson is about leadership, it’s about knowing how and when to use it under stress. That’s everyone’s business, but don’t mistake that foremost, this lesson lands squarely in your lap as the owner. In extraordinary conditions like this, you’ll always be first up to bat.

It’s Your Responsibility to Hold the Space

You don’t need to have all the answers. You don’t need to tell your employees what to do. You don’t even have to know how to fix the problem or make it right. Good employees crave independence, responsibility, and even opportunities to lead. But that doesn’t mean you can suddenly take an extended vacation–unless you want your employee to disappear, also.

You must show up in your sovereignty, even if it’s to clearly and thoroughly transfer specific responsibilities to an employee. Even if it is to say something like, “this needs to happen, and I don’t know how to make it happen, do you have any ideas.” Any way you slice it, you have to show up.

• It is your responsibility to be the business’s touchstone and compass.

Even if you can’t be fully present for an extended period of time, you must quickly do what is needed to ensure that your employees have the authorization and tools they need to manage the business in your absence.

Mark left home before he could train me to burn CDs (we had a products promo scheduled to launch in a few weeks). On the fly, he had to send me software and walk me through the process by phone and email.

Consider brainstorming regularly as a team about the best ways to handle unexpected problem situations.

• It’s your responsibility to bring order or structure to a chaotic situation.

You are the one that holds the biggest picture in your business. Check in with that picture, share it, hand out copies of it if you need to, but make sure that your presence, however minimal, is as dependable and consistent as possible. At the very least, don’t commit to something you may not be able to follow through on. And if you can’t follow through, don’t leave before you’re certain that your employee understands the consequences and can and will follow through in your absence.

Several weeks into the adoption and business juggle, Mark began forgetting to respond to my RESPOND emails. I suddenly lost footing not being able to remember what he’d responded to and what he hadn’t. Although I wanted him to be able to hold up his end, he couldn’t. What Mark did do, however, was suggest that I make a not in our content management system, Highrise, in case he did overlook an email.

• It is your responsibility to empower your employees to lead where needed and where they can.

Encourage their independence and creative problem-solving ability, their entrepreneurial spirit. Allow enough room for them to claim ownership over the aspects of your business that they care for and help develop. When you do need support, you’ll be more likely to really lean into it.

As director of retail operations at the National College of Natural Medicine, I gladly hired an assistant who knew more about product presentation and bookstore displays then I did. I had put a couple of years of sweat and blood into improving the bookstore and was more than a little invested. Yet it was much more important to let go when I had a colleague who was hungry for creative authority. I gratefully focused on our budget, inventory, and my many meetings–checking in with her regularly but with hands (mostly ) off. She made incredible changes and additions. Nora became the store’s manager after I left and continues to improve it on all levels.

In a healthy working team of creative individuals, leadership must come from everyone. Employee and employer roles can become interchangeable in the heat of doing, making, giving, and growing. Strong foundational leadership from you as the owner allows for that dynamic, independent creativity within your business. Now that’s grounds for serious momentum!

Coming to the Interview

It’s the middle of July and I ride up on my People 125 scooter in a sleeveless, long summer dress to interview for a part-time job at Heart of Business. I’ve been reading Mark’s articles for a year, I’ve read Unveiling the Heart of Your Business, and I’ve listened to him talk twice as a business owner myself. What a surprise to be guided to this unlikely moment.

I pull my helmet off and glance into a side view mirror hoping my hair isn’t irreparably smashed. Then I take out my upper and lower retainers–doing the teenage teeth straightening and TMJ repair thing at 47–because I just can’t bear to be speech impaired for their first impression.

I’m nervous walking up the 500 steps to their front door. Mark opens the door before I get there. Don’t trip on your dress, I think and smile. Making it inside in one piece, I knew I was on familiar ground.

The Interview

Holly’s in the kitchen asking if I want something to drink as Mark escorts me into a light, comfortable room with chairs and a big couch. I go for the couch; I don’t know why. As soon as I sit, it wants to pull me into a lean-back slouch with my legs crossed up under me. I fight the natural inclination and perch on the edge, keeping my feet firmly on the ground as Mark starts talking. He lets me know right away that he doesn’t really know what he’s doing, that he has a lot to learn about doing employees.

I’m impressed by his vulnerable honesty and flash on my first graduate program advisor, a published author I admired, who said on our first visit, “Well, I’ve never done this before. We’re going to have to figure this out together.” When I heard that from her, the oldest child in me was deeply disappointed, never managing to manifest that mentor-older sibling relationship. But hearing it from Mark felt like an opening. I knew I could help and that he could receive it. I also suspected that he could be that mentor for me at the same time.

Can You Handle Us? Can We Live with You?

“Holly and I have big personalities. Sometimes we can get into it. How do you handle big emotions?” . . .

Mark hands me a test. “Do you know about the Enneagram?” I say yes, a bit surprised but intrigued. I’m thinking, this is a great twist on the what’s your sign question. I’m wondering what the lucky number is already knowing that I’m a nine–the peacemaker–with a one wing and a one-to-one subtype. I get Mark to tell me that he’s a one–the perfectionist. Oh good, I think, here’s a guy who cares about quality and will not hesitate to let me know what he thinks is right. Oh god, I think, here’s a guy who will challenge my self-esteem regularly. And then there’s Holly who I find out is a four–more on that in future posts . . .

Mark comes back in. He finishes going through his scripted questions. He’s cautious. He so doesn’t want to make another hiring mistake. I go through mine, and I so want to make sure that I’m not there just because I’m afraid my business won’t support me.

An hour passes, and I find out that now it’s Holly’s turn. I take a deep breath. All this for a part-time admin assistant position. Yet it feels exciting because these people are as sincere and genuine about communication as I am. I think they’re over the top, and I like it.

Nearly two hours later . . . “Good to connect,” hugs, “We’ll call you . . .” They did . . .

If You Are New to Hiring Employees, Say So

Anybody worth your attention will know right away whether you know what you’re doing as an employer. Why not let them know up front. Find someone who is able and willing to be your guinea pig, someone who may even have experience managing employees themselves.

When you are at the point where you need to hire help, you don’t want to add the extra burden of having to be an all-knowing employer who takes on an employee who expects to simply follow his or her commands. And your employee doesn’t want to find out soon after they’re hired that the security they sought as an employee is paper thin.

Don’t be afraid to reveal some of your weak areas. The kind of employee you want to help you move from a single person to a multiple person business will want to support you at your learning edges. They will also want to be supported at theirs.

If you choose this level of transparency, find ways to acknowledge and reward your employee for the in between role they’re playing. It is your business, you make the decisions, but remember that that employee is willing to act as your peer and guide as you continue learning what it means to be an employer and grow your business beyond your own power and creative input.

It was an expensive, painful, enlightening, and incredibly educational journey. My wife and I learned tons about ourselves, about the true needs of the business, about how to hire, and how to be employers. Mostly because the first two hires didn’t work out. Which was expensive and painful. But worth it.

Now we have Kate Williams. Kate is our Infrastructure Queen. She has been an entrepreneur for-evah! She was the co-owner and manager of a holistic medical clinic, she was hired entry level at the National College of Natural Medicine and quickly rose to a director’s position, turning the school bookstore around and quadrupling it. Then she went out on her own as a freelance writer and editor.

Which is where she found us. She was a client of ours for months, before she responded to our ad.

We hired her, and she’s been working diligently within HoB, helping us tune up, and put in place, all kinds of systems and support so that we can sustain growth and development beyond the natural limits that Holly and I had reached in terms of our ability to just get things done.

Here’s the Insider’s View

Kate is adding her voice to this blog, and she’s going to blog about her experience coming into a business that already has momentum and a foundation, as compared to trying to get her own business up and running. She’s going to talk about what works, what doesn’t, insights and lessons learned.

And, she’s probably going to embarrass the crumb out of me, because she’s going to say pretty much whatever she wants. And there are wonderful things about HoB, and there are things that are messy and don’t work according to plan behind the curtain here.

In these times, rough economy, business in turmoil, I think it’s important for you to know the truth- that business is messy, mistakes are made, and that just because I, you, or anyone has accomplished something, it doesn’t mean I, you or anyone has all the answers.

But Kate just might. So watch for her posts.

Posts In This Series

Impressions: Finding That Right First Employee

Getting Paid . . . Eventually . . . After Having to Ask

Good Employees are Independent, and Good Employers Show Up

Wrestling to Anchor Our Infrastructure

Operating By the Books; It Does a Business Good

Don’t Forget to Tend to Your Personal Infrastructure

Remember to Include Time Into the Equation

Taking Advantage of Different Work Styles

And still no article. Despite the fact it was supposed to go out 10 days ago. Ugh.

Those weirdos who can send out an article every week. Or even more strange, those newspaper columnists that write every single day. They must be from another planet.

Ready for interplanetary travel?

We’re going to “Planet Client.” Okay, so that’s a cornball analogy, but that’s really all it takes. Too simple? Too obvious? Riddle me this, Batman:

Can you answer your clients’ questions in less than 21 days?

How about less than 21 minutes? If you’re standing there, in front of your client (or on the phone… heaven knows that’s where I usually am), and your client asks you a question like: “My partner and I, when we make love…sometimes it’s boring… and that’s just weird to me. What do I do?”

Oops. I forgot to tell you that, in this example, you’re a relationship and intimacy counselor.

Moving right along, if that was your expertise, you could answer the question. Right then. Right there. You could get them going on the right track.

Starting to get the drift?

A thinly disguised “Q&A” lurks within your articles.

It can’t really be that simple, can it? Well, there is an art to writing, but yes, a lot of it is pretty simple. Let’s hit the highpoints.

Keys to Quick Article Writing

• Which questions have you answered more than once?

If two clients have asked the same question, chances are, that’s a good one. If you hear people discussing a particular problem, chances are, that’s a great question.

Have fun answering the question for your clients, or for your friends. Just answer it.

• Now, do the same thing in front of your computer.

Answer the question. Have fun answering the question. Bring in the same examples you used when answering your friend.

Except, instead of speaking, you’re typing. Same words. Same (lack of) grammar. Same (informal, sweet, humorous, serious, profound, quick-witted, fill-in-the-blank) style that you use when speaking.

• Keep it bite-sized.

You may notice a tendency to stray into more topics. For instance, with this topic, I could stray into how to make an article amusing. Or how to bring in drama. But, I’m not. That’s not the question.

The question is: “how do you write an article quickly?” I answer that question.

• Other questions are other articles.

Notice when someone asks another question. Don’t try to fit it into the article. The whole question about boring sex may lead to a question of “How do I start to talk about intimacy with my partner when I feel so shy about it?”

My guess is that you may be trying to squeeze three or four articles into a single article- which is why you’re writing one article a month, or less, rather than writing one every week.

Writing regular articles that are meaningful to your clients is a great way to build connections, deepen relationships, and help get some momentum in your business. Just answer a single question, and you can chop days and
hours off of your writing time.

And then you can be just like those other weirdos who send out an article every single week, seemingly effortlessly.