Successful Blog

Has a CFD Experience Cost You Business?

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In 2007, I proposed an adventure on my blog. I invited bloggers to submit five bits of information that would promote their blogs:

  1. the name of the blog
  2. the blog url
  3. the tagline
  4. what makes the blog worth visiting
  5. one bit of advice for new bloggers

and I gave them 2 days to submit the information, clearly stating that the deadline was Friday noon Central and pointing out the clock in the sidebar of my blog.

How hard could it be to gather and email me those five bits of information?

Yet …
82% of the entries came in with information missing.

Which led Small Biz Survival Owner, Becky McCray, and I to describe a new syndrome — CFD: Can’t Follow Directions.

Is CFD Hurting Your Business?

In the case of that blog promotion, perhaps no one was hurt by the fact that if enough information was missing, I didn’t bother to hunt down the sender. That the entry wasn’t included might not have made a difference to their potential blog traffic. We’ll never know.

But I can tell you that it happens regularly that when I’m looking for help on a paying project, the presence of CFD makes a huge difference. Let me explain why …

  • CFD means that I can’t trust the work. I’m telling you what I need and how I need it delivered, if the business can’t follow directions, then I’m going to get back something other than I requested.
  • CFD means that things will take more time. When I have to repeat what I need, that second iteration means it takes twice as long to get the work done.
  • CFD means more cost. Guidelines and directions are meant to make the work easier, faster, and less costly. Whether something was missed because it wasn’t read or because it wasn’t understood, it adds up to corrections or adjustments. Corrections and adjustments cost time and money.
  • CFD means missed opportunities. What I might have been doing with the time it took to do things over is a huge hidden impact of CFD.

So I’m hugely biased toward people who listen, read directions, and ask questions if they don’t understand for certain what we’re trying to do together. They get my loyalty and my repeat business.

I run from people who show signs of CFD.
CFD not only hurts your business, but it hurts mine too.

Has a CFD experience cost you business?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Beach Notes: Camel Rides

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by Guest Writers Suzie Cheel and Des Walsh

Camel rides were a popular feature of the kite festival at local Kirra Beach, Queensland, last weekend. In the 19th century thousands of camels were imported to Australia to help with the colonization of less hospitable parts of the country, mainly in central and northern Australia. Then with the arrival of motor transportation, the camels were released into the wild.

They multiplied. So the very accommodating and apparently docile animals in the picture have a great many wilder cousins in Australian central desert regions. An interesting factoid for a trivia quiz is that, with over one million camels now roving free – and estimated to double every nine years – Australia has the largest feral camel population in the world.

Suzie Cheel & Des Walsh

Thanks to Week 319 SOBs

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Successful and Outstanding Bloggers

Let me introduce the bloggers
who have earned this official badge of achievement,

Purple SOB Button Original SOB Button Red SOB Button Purple and Blue SOB Button
and the right to call themselves
Successful Blog SOBs.
I invite them to take a badge home to display on their blogs.

 

They take the conversation to their readers,
contribute great ideas, challenge us, make us better, and make our businesses stronger.

 

I thank all of our SOBs for thinking what we say is worth passing on.
Good conversation shared can only improve the blogging community.

Should anyone question this SOB button’s validity, send him or her to me. Thie award carries a “Liz said so” guarantee, is endorsed by Kings of the Hemispheres, Martin and Michael, and is backed by my brothers, Angelo and Pasquale.

 

deep purple strip

Want to become an SOB?

If you’re an SO-Wanna-B, you can see the whole list of SOBs and learn how to be one by visiting the SOB Hall of Fame– A-Z Directory . Click the link or visit the What IS an SOB?! page in the sidebar.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

You are not nuts and other important stuff

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about things I don’t say enough to other people.

Someone today reminded me of a note I wrote in my newsletter not long ago.

I’ve been going through the email replies I’ve sent to people who’ve asked for help over the past 5 years. I’m not surprised to find that, although the people seem of every age, size, background, ability and economic class, the problems they bring to me seem to be the same kind — problems of connecting the space between our heads and our hearts, problems of believing in what we know about ourselves.

And I find some lines repeating. So I share them with you for when you might need them.

You are not nuts.
God is in heaven.
Angels are everywhere.
People are made of the same stuff as stars.
We’re not supposed to have the answers.
Love will draw a circle around you.

You don’t need to worry about drowning tonight.
You can sleep.
We’ll still eat tomorrow.
I love you.

Be you.
You are already irresistible.
Keep your head wired to your heart.

Liz's Signature

How I Got from Gratitude to Grace

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about gratitude.

I understand the power of the words, thank you.
I understand them so deeply that as a child I was afraid to say them.
I would watch how some people use them frivolously, I was afraid that people wouldn’t hear how much I meant them.
I was afraid they wouldn’t see in my eyes or hear in my voice that I meant them.
I feel the words, thank you, like a frog hears, deeply from his tiny ears into his lungs.

As I considered Thanksgiving, I thought it’s time I learned more about what powers those words.

I did a search for the etymology of the word, gratitude, and found myself wandering through a world of connections.
Our word gratitude may have from the 15th Century Middle French word, gratitude which means “good will.” If it came from the Latin word gratus which means “thankful, pleasing,” it’s a cousin to the word grace.

Good will.
Thankful.
Pleasing.
Grace.

In some families, grace is a prayer.
In some, it’s a ritual and a tradition.
Some have chosen it to name a child.

But when I saw that word, grace, … it was all of those and more.

Grace …
Immediately my mind heard music, my heart saw this photo, which has been a friend since 2006.

grace

So I went looking for the word, grace, in my own writing.
It appears twice in these ways …

… I wish for my friends to be around me. I wish for the courage to face where I’m going, to know what I know — that I’m unprepared for what I’ll be doing. … Then I breathe. Then I breathe. Then I breathe once more…. I ask permission without words, but through the grace and gentleness of my movement. I ask for faith from sky and angels who are everywhere. I need the wisdom of one who has conquered fear. … Inside the fear is the graceful wisdom I was seeking. —The Rhythm of the Rowing

and

Head and heart together. Head and heart – it took so long to know.
When head and heart come together life is a dance.
Head and heart together . . .
grace. — Head and Heart Together

I wandered back through my life to find a conclusion. I wrote it years ago, but only realized it now.

Thank you is best offered filled with trust — breathing in life without fear.
With grace and gentleness, head and heart come together in gratitude.
That’s how I got from gratitude to grace.

Wishing you your family and friends around you.
May you move in gratitude and grace.

Be irresistible.

Liz's Signature

Small Business Owners, Employees Sick of Rising Health Care Rates

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With just about everything going up in price these days, it should not come as a surprise that health care rates for both employers and workers have been on a steep upward trend in recent years.

According to a Kaiser Family Foundation/Health Research & Educational Trust 2011 Employer Health Benefits Survey released this fall, employers are putting more money toward their employees’ healthcare premiums than at any other time.

The survey, which interviewed close to 3.200 public and private firms with a minimum of two employees, notes that prices grew 9 percent over the past year. The premiums for family health care coverage have increased to an average of $15,073, with business owners covering more than $10,000 of the cost.

Some highlights from the survey:

  • Six-in-10 companies made health benefits available to their employees in 2011, a sharp contrast from the nearly seven-in-10 who did so just a year earlier;
    • Employees pay $4,129 toward the premium, while employers cover the remaining $10,944;
    • Single policy health coverage costs also grew some 8 percent, coming in at $5.429 yearly. As a result of this coverage, employees pay $921 toward the plan;
    • Overall, PPOs are much more common plan types, enrolling 55 percent of those covered;
    • Seventeen percent of those covered workers are enrolled in an HMO, while 10 percent have a POS plan, and 1 percent utilize a conventional plan;
    • The majority of covered workers have to deal with added expenses when using health care services. A large number of workers with PPOs (81 percent) and POS set ups (69 percent) deal with a general annual deductible for single coverage that must be taken care of prior to all or the majority of services being reimbursed through the plan;
    • In all, 31% of covered workers have a policy with a deductible of at least $1,000 for single coverage, a major increase from the 22 percent such reported in 2009;
    • Most employees also are required to pay some of the expense of doctor office visits. Approximately 75 percent of covered workers’ pay a co-payment toward office visits for a primary care doctor or a specialist physician, along with any general annual deductible a plan may have.

According to a spokesperson for Kaiser, “This year’s nine percent increase in premiums is especially painful for workers and employers struggling through a weak recovery.”

Meantime, according to a report from Aon Hewitt, employees nationwide who have healthcare coverage can figure on seeing a cost hike of seven percent in the coming year.

So, how can both small businesses and employees lessen the chances of needing some of this healthcare in the first place? Among the things to consider are:

  • Stay healthy and active– More and more companies are instituting comprehensive wellness programs that involve disease management, offering cancer screenings, flu shots and smoking-cessation sessions. Some businesses also offer discounts or even free admission to local fitness centers in order for employees to stay in a good shape;
  • Give them what they want – While some plans have requirements as to what coverage and at what cost it is available, sit down with your human resources individual or team and see what your employees are most interested in. By doing so, you can potentially eliminate some of the more costly options if they are not being used;
  • Look into health savings accounts – More businesses are giving a second look to HAS’s. The accounts are tax-exempt, used to cover a number of medical costs;
  • Get a number of quotes – Small business employers are advised to shop around and obtain a variety of quotes. Also, don’t settle on the first quote even if it sounds really good. By shopping around, you have the opportunity to get a good health care insurance product at a reasonable price.

As 2012 comes to light in a little over a month, make sure both you and your employees have a health care plan in place that is both affordable and provides solid coverage.

Photo credit: businessnewsdaily.com

Dave Thomas, who covers among other subjects’ workers compensation, writes extensively for Business.com, an online resource destination for businesses of all sizes to research, find, and compare the products and services they need to run their businesses.