LNB #002: Am I a Contractor of Employee?

You think you're a contracted professional, but what gives? Your "client" tells you when to come in (to work), how many hours you can work, that you have to come to manditory staff meetings. Sounds amazingly like a (gasp) JOB! This podcast is for two audiences: the contractor who needs to re-train a client and the company, wanting to bring in a contractor.

Learn how to keep out of tax and other trouble when engaging independent professionals.

Resources: Consider the whitepaper, "Contractor or Employee" on the Total Team Solutions website.

Duration: 9:33 File Size: 2.29 MB

LNB #001: The 7 Deadly Sins of Marketing, Pt. 1 (an interview with Marketing Maven, Leighton Haynes)

Part one of a 7-part interview with Leighton Haynes of Twin Phoenix Marketing, Washington, D.C. Leighton discusses 7 key things business owners can do to mess up their marketing -- and dives into what to do about one of them.

Length: 24:15 File Size:5.82 MB

Listen Now:

Here's Another Cut at P.C.

You may know that in an earlier incarnation of my life I was an Affirmative Action and Employee Relations officer. I spent much of my time dealing with race, sex and age discrimination and watching as our efforts to educate our workforce lead, invariably, to a chilling of workplace relationships. People were striving to be "cool" rather than authentic.

Over the holidays, my brother, Perry, a very interesting police officer with a twisty sense of the amusing, showed me these links. They depict "Office Linebacker," Terry Tate as a key contributor in a fictional company's HR department. Being an HR refugee, I found this uncomfortably funny. Take a look. Just don't spend too much time on the Milk and Cookies website: http://www.milkandcookies.com/keywords/terrytate/.

Consider this: its much better to tell the plain, unvarnished truth about what you think than to try to make it presentable so people will think better of you. If you think it, be responsible for it. Change your mind rather than just how you talk.

Write a Strategic Plan?! You've Got to be Kidding Me!

Even the thought of it can make you kind of tired. Try Simplified Strategic Planning: A No-Nonsense Guide for Busy People Who Want Results Fast! and The One Page Business Plan with CD-ROM for ideas on how to create a working document that's lean and brief.

What ideas do you have for strategic planning?

When It Hits the Fan: Quickly Recover Your Business When Disaster Strikes

Prior to Hurricane Kat, a disaster for most business owners was a hard drive crash. By some estimates, of those businesses that will recover, most will be down for months rebuilding and recovering data.

What great tip do you have for when disaster strikes?

Keep It Simple...and Profitable

Elaine St. James' book Simplify Your Work Life : Ways to Change the Way You Work So You Have More Time to Live has lots of easy tips to help business owners and career professionals take much of the struggle and effort out of the day to day.

After you're read it, pick 3 items and work at them until they become habits.

The Forgotten Half of Change

Companies, to stay ahead of market pressures, are required to do more than change -- they're being forced to transform themselves to stay alive. In The Forgotten Half of Change, author de Brabandere challenges us to change not only our actions, but to fundamentally shift our thinking about what we do and why we think what we think.

This month, think about where your thinking and your outcomes just don't match. You might want to get to business meetings on time, but keep doing that one last thing before you walk out the door. Perhaps, you know you should have employee policies to set expectations and to protect your interests in case things go awry, but you still haven't gotten it done. What about the new sales calls you know you need to go on, but you can't get away from the office to get to your prospects or new clients?

Knowing the right thing to do isn't enough.

A Business Plan in How Many Pages?

You know you need a business plan -- you do. But you don't have the time or the money to devote to creating a multi-page, bound document that you're not sure how to use. Business planning doesn't have to be tough. Use the power of the One Page Plan to create a simple, living document that you can use daily to plan your business efforts.

I started using the One Page Plan a year ago and it changed the way my business grew. I could carry my plan with me and, if an opportunity came that was inconsistent with my plan, I could easily steer clear and stay focused on my business. All of the extraneous material was gone.

Work That Network

Networking had been just that -- work -- for me until I learned several key facts. The top of the list is that the people in the room aren't interested in me, mostly at all. They're interested in themselves, their interests and their agenda. I didn't like it, but it was true. When I got dialed-into this fact of life and began working my net consistent with the true intentions of the people in the room, life got much easier and I began producing greater results. Later, as I got to learn more about each person, they let their guard down and became more open -- more consistent with who they were in the rest of their lives.

What are your networking frustrations and successes?

First Things First...Sure! After I Do My Email, and Check Voicemail, and Help this Customer, and Call Home...

Are you functioning daily based on your core values and priorities? Heck, do you even have time to figure out what they are? Whether you're read the book of the month, First Things First, or not, feel free to happily weigh in on this timely subject (yeah, that was bad)!

Good to Great

Jim Collins' book, which follows on the success of his other work, Built to Last, focuses on the answer to this question: "Can a good company become a great company and if so, how does that happen."

What Stops You from Getting Help?

You think about hiring someone to help, but get stopped by...what? The expense? Not knowing who or how to hire someone? Being unsure whether to contract it out or hire it in?

Write in your comments and have at it!

Email Hell

Email was designed to help speed communications. Where does email put a crimp in your productivity?