Sh*t Happens!


I recently had to take a week off work unexpectedly and dash off to Ontario when my step-son went into the hospital. An hour before we hit the road, I was emailing clients and friends with promises of finishing up projects as soon as I arrived at the hotel room.

Silly me! After a 20 hour road trip, all I wanted to do was get to the hospital. That remained my priority for the next 4 days and thoughts of newsletters and websites were long gone.

On the day I left, my friend said all my clients would surely understand if their newsletters were late going out. After all, they have families too. There is no doubt in my mind that all of my clients would have been supportive and accepted my apologies... if that had happened.

But that didn't happen. The newsletters went out. The emails got answered. New sales were made. It was an unplanned test and we passed. Yay!

Last year I was smart enough to bring on a superwoman (Danielle) to work with me. Because we’ve been getting so busy this year, we have been diligent about documenting everything, from client schedules to step-by-step instructions. And it paid off!

I was mortified at the thought of letting my clients down. Danielle knew that and made sure it didn’t happen.

What did I learn?
  • I can relax a bit and not be quite so focused on documenting everything (but just a bit).
  • I now have a ton of confidence in Danielle taking over for me when need be. I dropped several balls that she picked up and juggled while I was gone.
  • We are not profitable enough to do that for long, without losing money. Unless I don't want to get paid!
  • There are a few small holes we need to fill – and we will.
I’ve had much less success taking planned vacations in the past. This is the first time I've had a whole week off in a few years.


Originally published in Work Better, Not Harder on September 25, 2012

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I Love Uphill Graphs!

Image
I've been known to fixate on graphs and measurements . See, I really hate working for no reason. I like to know that my efforts make a difference. If not, I either tweak and retry, or I give it up and put my efforts elsewhere. You can imagine that I've been keeping an eagle eye on all this online stuff - blogging, social media - since I took those first tentative steps . And it's really cool that the stats get dished up for me! I was delighted when I saw this graph of our blog statistics:  Before December, the highest number of page views we'd ever had in one month was in October - 997 views. I was kind of happy when that happened. In December,  our page views more than quadrupled! We did something right... but what was it? How do I replicate it? I think this happened because 3 or 4 times a week I started posting links to older blog posts on Twitter and LinkedIn. But, well, doesn't that seem just a little too easy? I'm wondering if perhaps the
Keep reading »

Make a Personal Connection - A Success Story

Image
Brenda Fay and her husband Dan of BrenDaniel Productions Corp. have trained people all over the world on project management. As a result, they have many contacts across several time zones. They had been using email marketing to promote their services. A couple of years ago I suggested to Brenda that she can get more out of her email marketing if she also gives some value to readers . Now her brief newsletter is bringing her success every time it goes out. Recently I asked Brenda where she gets her ideas . “From things that happen every day – talking with people, listening to CBC radio, and reading books are three main ways. I write about ideas that strike me as related to project management in one way or another.” Brenda told me that her goals are to stay in touch with people and to get information out about public programs she’s offering. It’s not a one way street. “It is fun for me to write the articles, and I am very pleased when people write back giving comments on the
Keep reading »

How to Get People to Open Your Emails

Image
How long did you think about the subject line of that email you just sent to your brand new client? Will they be interested or excited to open it? Or will they leave it sitting unopened, floating closer to the bottom of their inbox? I've discovered a little quirk. In fact, it feels more like a secret I shouldn't acknowledge, maybe even a tad manipulative. It didn't start out that way but now I know what I know... well, I can't un-know it. Here it is. If I send an email to any of my work friends with the words 'no rush' in the subject line, it's likely to get opened faster than any other email I send them. Of course, this may not work any longer once my friends read this article. But let me be clear, I've never used that knowledge to manipulate. And that's why it works. When I send an email with 'no rush' in the subject line, I really mean there's nothing inside requiring their attention soon. Usually it's a business idea in
Keep reading »

Up the Value of Your Redirect Pages

Image
Many of the people connecting with you online are arriving at one of your redirect pages at some point. A redirect page is the 'thank you for signing up' page you send them to when they sign up for your newsletter, or the event registration page you send them to when they sign up for your events. Often, these pages contain minimal, basic information. A thank you message in the case of the newsletter or confirmation of event details (location, time, date, etc) in the case of event registration. But why stop there? For one moment, you have managed to connect with that person. You have them at your website and they have already let you know they are interested in what you are doing by signing up for your newsletter or registering for your event. Why not think about what value you can offer them while they are there? How can you expand on that connection? With both your target market and your marketing strategy in mind, take a fresh look at your redirect pages and con
Keep reading »

Do You Need an Editorial Calendar?

Image
An editorial calendar makes it easy for people to work together, helping them follow a plan. What if there's only you in your business? Does it make sense to create an editorial calendar? Absolutely, but for different reasons. If your plan is in your head, writing it out will reduce stress - now you don't have to remember it. Handwriting activates the creative part of your brain and your memory . More importantly, having a plan will prep your brain to be on the lookout for appropriate content. You can use fancy spreadsheets, or find a detailed editorial calendar online. You can use coloured file cards, sheets of paper, or a whiteboard. The most important thing is that it works for y-o-u . It doesn't have to be like anyone else's editorial calendar. Of course, before you create an editorial calendar, you need to generate a bunch of content ideas . If you are like me, your content ideas may not be well organized. Creating an editorial calendar forces you t
Keep reading »

Boost Your Expert Reputation with an Evergreen Series

Image
Writing a series of articles is a great way to connect related content together . It is also an attention-getter, encouraging readers to subscribe or return for the next installment in the series. And it can be a showcase for demonstrating your expertise on a particular topic. A topical series of blog posts should be planned in advance to maximize its effectiveness. Here’s why: The finished series will flow more easily from one post to the next when you’ve created and edited a bullet outline of the entire series in advance. You can determine your link strategy and execute it seamlessly. You can promote the upcoming series in advance to generate interest and anticipation. Suggested Workflow to Create Your Series Determine your topic and create your series outline. Create and post some teasers on social media with a call-to-action to subscribe. Determine your link strategy and gather all relevant links. Paste them into your outline or create a separate text doc to put
Keep reading »

It doesn't have to be About You

Image
Let’s face it: some businesses are in a better position to provide valuable information through newsletters (blogs, social media) than others. Take our own newsletter as an example. We could easily publish a newsletter about publishing newsletters. (Stay with me here.) It would have lots of tips and suggestions and advice. We could really show off our expertise and share our opinions. Now, who would that appeal to? People who are publishing their own newsletters. Perhaps even people who are publishing newsletters for others. These people aren’t our target market - not even close. Our newsletter has nothing to do with our area of specialty. But of course we have to have one. What’s an 'enewsletter boutique' without its own newsletter ? So we found something else of use to our target market:  ideas and tips for small business owners shared by other small business owners. And (big bonus here) members of our target market are the authors of our newsletter! Giving va
Keep reading »

How I Emptied My Inbox!

Image
This is what an empty inbox looks like! It's the first time I've seen mine like this in at least a couple of years, maybe longer. It looks kind of strange, doesn't it? Even a little hard to get used to. What a boost of self-gratification I got from accomplishing this (been patting myself on the back ever since). So much so that I'm now determined and motivated to keep it this way. Does this mean that I have nothing to do? That all my action items are completed? Not by a long shot - but now they're not staring me in the face all the time distracting me. My inbox will no longer be used as an ineffective to-do list. Now I realize this is a bit of psychological manipulation - it's all about my state of mind. But I've learned that my state of mind is about the most important consideration to accomplishing anything. What brought about this most awesome accomplishment? A handy little online app called Follow Up Then . It is by far the most useful ap
Keep reading »

Do You Want 1,000,000 Subscribers?

Image
Tasting Table ( www.tastingtable.com ) grew its contact list to 1,000,000 subscribers in just 3 years. That’s pretty amazing on its own but here’s the kicker - it’s a daily newsletter. (I only have to get 998,000 more subscribers to catch up.) Would I want a mailing list of 1,000,000 subscribers? Most definitely ... if I owned a marketing company that sells advertising. I don’t, and most of you don’t either. (If you do, you know this stuff better than I do.) If Daley Progress had 1,000,000 subscribers, we’d never keep up with all the work generated. Because our capacity is limited, the time and effort spent to get that many subscribers would be wasted. We try to match our efforts to our desired results. As small business owners, our email marketing goals can be quite different and distinct. Not all of us want 1,000,000 subscribers. But we do need to continually get new subscribers because, over time, our lists can drop by as much as 30% over a year through attrition (calle
Keep reading »

Here's How Writing Content Turns You Into an Expert

Image
There are many marketing benefits to regular blogging or writing for a newsletter. But other - perhaps more important - benefits may not be clear until after you've been doing it a while. Regardless of how much you know, sooner or later you're going to need to do a little online research. Does that article you just wrote really include all the important facts or items? Especially for checklist type articles, you want to make sure to include everything relevant. An item missed from a list of items to take camping in the winter could have dire consequences, not the least of which is your reputation. Does your article agree or disagree with others' advice or information? Finding other references that support your message is good - you can grab quotes or link to it. Finding others who disagree is important if there are a lot of them - you may need to justify your message in that context. Do you know the latest developments in your industry or affecting your target
Keep reading »