Small Office, Home Office Information

If your small business has a reasonably public profile e.g. a listing in the yellow pages or a business directory then you will, from time to time, be approached by people selling advertising.

It’s usually advertising in journals and papers that you - and most other people on the planet - have never heard of and often the approach is a little less honest than it could be.

Just last week down at the computer shop Rick had a phone call from one such sales person who was ringing to confirm that Rick really did want to go ahead with the advertising that he had agreed to back in April. Now Rick is always very busy but he’s not that busy to forget who he places his advertising with and this sales person was from someone Rick had never heard of before.

That sales person’s window of opportunity was closed very quickly but I’m sure he must have tricked quite a few other small busines people into paying for advertising that they had never agreed to.

So be wary when people call you about advertising and don’t agree to anything without spending some time considering whether or not there will be a reasonable return on your investment. Usually in cases like the one I just mentioned there is absolutely zero return on investment.

Even if the caller is genuine and from a very reputable business it still pays to be a little wary and not be rushed into something you may not want to do.

Brendon Sinclair over on his blog Tailored Online has a very interesting story of two competitors and how they were conned into paying for advertising in the Yellow Pages that they didn’t reall want. You can check it out at Why You Might Not Need That Full Page Ad

The weekend was a very different one for us. I finally bit the bullet and cleaned up my office, we had friends over for a BBQ, Toni spent time preparing for that and ultimately very little time was spent ‘working’.

To me that was fine - we both needed a break - last week had been rather brutal as far as work was concerned and this coming week is going to be quite hard too so basically taking it easy was important.

But about 7pm last night Toni was seeing things a little differently. She was lamenting that she had done no proof-reading over the weekend and now had a lot of catching up to do.

But was that the right way to look at the situation?

If you look at something in terms of ‘catching up’ you’re adding stress and adding stress does not improve any situation.

In Toni’s situation stress was only going to make matter worse. So instead of looking at the situation as ‘ catching up’ what she really needed to do was think it terms the proof reading as being just one more task to be completed on Monday.

When you look at a situation like that the stress levels are reduced, the pressure is off and it’s easier to reach your goals for the day instead of running around like a headless chicken trying to ‘catch up’.

Yay … woo hoo it’s Friday and that means the weekend is just hours away … I can hardly wait. It’s a long weekend in the US and that means that it’s going to be a little quiet for us for a few days.

It’s also the start of spring and Father’s Day here in Australia and so we’re going to celebrate - we’ve got friends coming over on Sunday to christen our new BBQ. After what has been a hard week we are really looking forward to it and for a few hours we won’t even think about our small business.

And now some links to sites you should find interesting:

New to Business Checklist - in PDF or as an online interactive - published by the Australian Government but worth a look regardless of where you live.

Charging by the Project or by the Hour - charge like a wounded buffalo or under-charge and eat the cost

The Web Developer’s Handbook - even if you’re only a part time webmaster there is something here for you. It’s awesome and be prepared to spend hours looking at what you find here.

How Much for Vista - Microsoft’s new operating system is not far away and they haven’t officially released their pricing for the new software yet but there has been a slip. And if you want to see what that translates into in terms of overall cost

What is the business Case for Upgrading to Vista - if you want to see what the figures in the link above translate into in terms of overall cost. It’s not set in stone just yet but even so it sure ain’t pretty.

When you’re setting up your small business for the first time you need all the help you can get. The Australian Government has just released a checklist that covers many of the basic issues you need to consider when setting up a small business.

While it’s completely relevant for small business people here in Australia it could also be helpful for you if you live elsewhere.

You can download a copy of the checklist here