Successful Blog

The Ultimate Pre-Conference Checklist

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Rosemary O’Neill

SOBCon NW Here I Come!

As you read this, I should be happily rubbing elbows with Liz, Terry, and tons of other smart enthusiastic entrepreneurs and small business owners at SOBCon NW in Portland.

The trip inspired me to share my personal pre-conference to do list.

I hope it helps make your next conference experience more productive!

  • Try to connect with other attendees in advance (Twitter is my weapon of choice).
  • Start following the conference hashtag (if you’re really hardcore, make a Hootsuite column for the conference stream).
  • Charge all devices and pack chargers, cords, Mophie juicepack, and a power strip.
  • Download a movie or two to the iPad.
  • Re-look at and update all social profiles, since they’ll hopefully be getting looked at a lot. You want to make a good first impression.
  • Back up your laptop and phone, in case either gets misplaced or stolen. You should already have your important stuff stored in the “cloud” on DropBox or elsewhere.
  • Try to arrange specific meetups in advance (sometimes in the heat of the action you can lose out on meeting specific people).
  • Consider whether you want to capture some content for your blog (be ready to shoot impromptu interview videos or live-blog a session).
  • Include flat shoes that can be tossed in a briefcase (I saw you do that, Gini Dietrich!).
  • Always bring a couple of powerbars (good if you get stuck in an airplane, or if the conference food is bad, or if you skip lunch to meet with someone).
  • If there’s an attendee list (check the event site, or Lanyrd.com) scan for new people you can meet.
  • Decide what your ‘ask’ is, in case anyone says, ‘so what can I help you with?’ (I learned this one painfully ).
  • Brush up your two-sentence pitch for when someone says, ‘what do you do?’
  • Scan the session information and think in advance of what smart questions you might ask if the speaker does Q&A at the end.

Note that this is the ‘attendee’ version of the list. Mitch Joel posted the definitive ‘speaker’ version of this list a few months ago.

What do you do to make the most of your conference attendance?

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

Thank you, Rosemary!

You’re irresistible!

ME “Liz” Strauss

Are Your Employees Driving You Crazy?

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Today’s small business owner should be looking for every opportunity to save money. If they’re not, then there is a good chance they may be closing up shop sooner rather than later.

One area that can oftentimes be overlooked, but should be reviewed several times a year to search for additional savings, is a company’s auto insurance coverage.

For the small business owner that must make deliveries or customer contact calls using company vehicles, having the right insurance at the right price should be a given.

In order to get the right coverage at the right price:
* Obtain several quotes – You should go online and put together several quotes in order to compare and contrast.  Also research each insurer to see how they rate when it comes to customer service and financial stability;

* Consider a larger deductible – In order to save some money on premiums, you can opt for a higher deductible, but make sure you have the money in place to meet the expense of the deductible should one of your drivers be in an accident. Even the smallest of fender benders can turn into something major if the other party or parties decide to consult a lawyer, claiming they were injured by your employee;

* Bundle coverage – Another option for trimming your insurance rates is by bundling coverage with the same insurer. In the event you have a homeowners, renters, life or health insurance policy with Company #1, consider switching your business auto insurance from Company #2 over to the former. Many insurance companies will offer policyholders a deal when they manage all of their insurance needs;

* Maintain a clean driving record – This should be a no-brainier, but having a clean business driving record goes a long way in keeping your rates manageable. Make sure that any employee using a company vehicle has a good driving record, practices safe driving, and is reminded of this on a regular basis (see below). As for your company vehicle/s, the latest safety features available such as airbags and anti-lock brakes will also help lower your rates.

Employees Need to Take Responsibility Too

Having said all that, the business owner must also make sure they have a policy in place with their employees who use company vehicles to properly and efficiently use them.

It should not come as a surprise in today’s technological world that more employers are either using or considering putting in place GPS systems to track employees while on the clock.

As an example, your employee is scheduled for a client call at the customer’s business for 9:30 a.m. The employee leaves your office a few minutes before for the short drive over to the business, with the intent being the call should take no more than half an hour. Some two hours later, the employee returns and you have questions. First, why were they gone so long? Secondly, why did a short trip result in an additional 50 miles on the company vehicle? Yes, you can see where there could be an uncomfortable situation here for both employer and employee.

For the small business owner, did they clearly state to the employee when they hired them that a policy was in place for such calls, along with the fact that all trips are recorded for both time and mileage purposes?

Not only did monitoring the employee present the employer with the potential for disciplining the worker in abusing their driving privileges while at work, but it also called into question potential insurance issues, as the employee could have been involved in an accident while doing unnecessary driving on the clock.

And you thought being a small business owner did not come with a lot of responsibilities?

Photo credit: electronics.howstuffworks.com

With 23 years of experience as a writer, Dave Thomas covers a wide array of topics to help small business owners succeed.

5 Rules to Live By and 5 Rules for Living Life

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How to Happiness

Do You Rule Out Living Part of Your Life?

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She showed me her blog post about how she wasn’t doing enough. It listed out all of the things she was inspired to do now. Wow. She said she was going to read so many books; write so many blog posts, go to so many events; meet up with so many friends and family members; and excel at work.

So much commitment … I was wondering where the time was be alive.

Commitments are good things, especially those commitments we finally learn to make to ourselves. Yet, we can throw ourselves off course with commitments and rules until we lose sight of the spontaneous, growing, learning and living human beings we are.

5 Rules to Live By

Can we really make rules to live by? We need the right navigational skills, knowledge, and tools true enough, but making rules for life … Isn’t that sort of like making definitive rules about how to paddle the rapids or drive the back roads? Don’t we have to let the conditions of the rapids and the roads figure in on our choices?

Now, I’m not saying it’s not a good idea to have a few “rules of the road” to guide us. I’m saying we could do a lot fewer of them …
Of course, we need a few stretchable boundaries. A little definition gives us purpose and raises our expectations.
I’d never say take off without any idea of a destination. Gotta know where we’re going.
I’m not even thinking that we should disregard our method of transportation.
It’s even probably a good idea to choose the general route we might be taking …

But, we don’t need to determine how many miles that we’ll be moving while the sun shines, where we’ll be stopping to take a photo, or how long we’ll be swerving to miss an unfilled pothole. We don’t need to be portioning out the hours, minutes, and seconds we’ll be talking to, listening to, or sharing silence with people we love. To do that we need to know what we value and who we care about.

    Rule 1: Choose what you value and your values. Like it or not, what you value will define you and attract people who value the same stuff.

    Rule 2: Have time and energy for the people who are important to you. Enjoy their successes. Never let them fail. You’ll never fear them when you feel most lost.

    Rule 3: Have a destination in mind. It’s okay to change it a few times.

    Rule 4: Pick a suitable method of transportation. Don’t try to walk to an island or swim to the moon.

    Rule 5: Sketch out a logical starting route that suits you and takes you in the right direction. Often taking the first step is the hardest, so get started soon as you can. Every step takes you closer to where you’re going.

But … remember that humans don’t come with an instruction manual or a rule book for life.
We learn who we are by living our lives.
We’re each a one-of-a-kind experiment.
We all need a few rules of our own.

5 Rules for Living Life

As kids, we all looked forward to growing up for the chance to decide when to eat ice-cream for breakfast and other such stuff. Then we found out those decisions aren’t the ones that count. Even worse, we found out that the rules we thought were guides of our lives aren’t the same for everyone in this bigger universe.

The entire world population can’t meet to decide what makes a life worth living. Who’d be in charge? How would we pick?

Deciding the rules that make your life worth living is really up to you.

For the sake of conversation, here are a few rules you might try out. I think of them of as rules for living life. They’re all adaptable to any size, temperament, time line, location, or living conditions you might design.


    Rule 6: Permit yourself to leave space, time, energy, consciousness for unexpected new stuff.

    Rule 7: Learn new things from people who’ve been where you’re going, from people who’ve been places you’ve never imagined, from people who are like you and from people who are not.

    Rule 8: Find out as much as you can about what you’re good at and figure out how not to care about what you’re not.

    Rule 9: Remember old things that you thought you’d forgotten, especially what made you laugh when you were young.

    Rule 10: See, smell, hear, taste, and touch what the world has to offer — surprise yourself.

Be open to the opportunity that serendipity serves up. Experience ideas that grab your attention. Realize what challenges you and discover what problems you can solve. Choose a few rules for living that make this life your own.

Knowing where you’re going is irresistible.
Being alive while you go is even more irresistible than that.

Be irresistible.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

Moving House or Business? 6 Things To Know about Your New Location

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Eveleene Salt

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After the Olympics, you might be wondering what it would be like to spend a year or two in London. Every city has it’s unique attributes, attractions, and amenities of distinctions. Whether it’s a dream or a real possibility, thinking through a home or business relocation is a great exercise in thinking.

Moving To London? What You Need To Know

Every year people from all walks of life move to London lured by its fast living, bright lights, appealing salaries and its cultural as well as professional diversity. What people find is a dynamic, expensive, yet thrilling world class capital city packed with opportunities and great experiences.

London is a huge idyllic place governed by vast administrative body including 33 boroughs and The Greater London authority. Deciding about moving to London is not like a simple across the country move, the whole process needs in-depth research from finding good relocation service providers to getting updated with whereabouts of the place.

Moving House or Business? 6 Things To Know about Your New Location

Any move requires research and planning, here are 6 things to think through about a relocation:

1. Housing

London is a huge city. Like any big city, making a decision where to live will ultimately depend on the factors like price, schools, transportation, travel times, and basic local amenities. Extrapolating the areas and speaking with people may help, but in order to find a peaceful crime free area you can talk to metropolitan police. Check their site to know about all the crime free areas and rent an accommodation in one of these areas.

The housing can be of any type which suits your expenses, there are Bedsits or studio apartments, flats or rental apartments, condos, townhouses, houses or a room in someone else’s house. Check the recent rental prices and guidelines for every kind of accommodation. The most important aspects that you need to consider are dealing with your landlords – tenancy agreement and council tax.

2. Career and Business

Check business climate and work opportunities in the news and through unemployment statistics. These will give you a basic idea about the amount of effort you need to put in order to keep solid financially. Gather and understand the general information about the basic costs of living and salary guidelines.

3. Setting up a bank account

In the U.K., as most locations, bank accounts are easy and safe way to manage your money. In order to open your bank accounts in the country you need to verify both your identity and address. Check with the local financial institutions about the documents you’ll need to set up personal and business accounts.

4. Accessing heath care

National health services provide majority of health care services in England including primary care, long term health care and inpatient health care. You are provided with NHS services by the London government if you are living in London irrespective of the fact that you have citizenship or not. Know the way that healthcare works in your destination before you finalize your decision.

5. Public Transportation

London transport consists of bus system, tram system, a wide spread tube network that include DLR, underground and over ground. There are national rails, black cabs and mini cabs too. For discounted travel rates you can have access to Oyster cards, the current public transportation passes used by the travelers in London. You can check on various public transportation websites and commuter reports to gather valuable information about moving around wherever you’re going.

6. Entertainment

London is vibrant, cosmopolitan and welcoming city where there is no end to opportunities and entertainment. Many of the variety of world famous museums and galleries have free admission. London has multitude of festivals taking up every year. Get a calendar of events in your new location that should not be missed. Some say that London’s Notting Hill Festival is the most famous festival of all.

Whether you’re dreaming or planning, whether it’s London or Honolulu, every destination offers some new challenges that require preparation and changes that might require adaptation. The most successful moves start with some research and planning.

Author’s Bio:
Eveleene Salt has been contributing regular article related to home improvement, reviews about London moving company and removal services

Are You in Business to Succeed or Fail?

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Going into business  for yourself can certainly be viewed as a dicey proposition.

If you are currently employed under the watch of someone else, do you leave the salary, benefits, etc. to venture off on your own? If you do, is it in the back of your head that a high percentage of small businesses fail within the first five years? Lastly, do you have the required drive and available funds to make it through the toughest of times?

With a national unemployment rate of still more than 8 percent, it should not come as a surprise that many people are taking that chance, that chance where they can potentially make something out of nothing and turn a business profit.

As someone who has gone through a pair of corporate layoffs over the last six years, it has become more and more apparent to me that job security for the most part is a thing of the past.

Unlike many of our parents who worked for one company most of their lives, many of us today sport resumes that list a couple of employers, even a half dozen or more in many cases.

Starting your own business can be downright scary, however the rewards can be downright impressive. Yes, the financial rewards are important, but what about that feeling of satisfaction that you built something from nothing and made it work?

While there are courses and coaches that can help the prospective small business man or woman, there is really nothing better than those firsthand experiences.

Yes, you will hit some bumps in the road, perhaps many. Yes, you will question your decision to start a small business at 3 a.m. when your loved ones and neighbors are asleep. Yes, you will sometimes, many oftentimes, wonder if leaving that comfortable corporate check every two weeks was really worth it.

Being someone who has given more and more thought to starting his own content writing business in recent months, I can simply say that I would never discourage someone from pursuing their business dreams.

None of us can say with certainty what the small business climate will be like a year from now, let alone a few months down the road.

If you start a small business and it ends up not turning out the way you wanted, never forget the fact that you tried.

In the end, isn’t trying to succeed at whatever you choose what life is about in the first place?

Photo credit: ehow.com

Dave Thomas has more than 20 years’ experience as a writer, covering news, sports marketing, SEO, press releases, social media and more. You’ll find Dave at: http://www.examiner.com/news-in-san-diego/dave-thomas