Managing your business, managing blogs and time to manage lists
Especially that last part of the title is doing 'me head in' today, so I've just given up, dumped all lists and am writing this post instead. (Even told Liz I felt like 80 and demented this morning, midday, she sent me back a smile; so there you go: it's Friday afternoon.)
And not just some Friday afternoon, it's the last Friday of the first quarter of the year and for most businesses even the last day of the first financial quarter (not so here, tomorrow is another day).
Q1 means: gathering all financial details, generating financial reports, comparing it with financial budgets and last years financial 1st quarter (are we on schedule, are we doing better - worse and why or why not?) Especially those last two questions are important to follow up on, otherwise the figures are just that: financial figures - one more thing ticked off: financial figures done.
Kent Blumberg asks another tasks from us business people at the end of this first business quarter and a very important one also: will all those financial reports help you manage your business? And generously supplies us with 4 categories of other questions: a total of 27 additional answers to think about and write down. I'll only list the categories, shoot over to Kent's blog to find, think about or even brainstorm over the questions (in the end you might even surprise yourself with the answers)
- Questions about you
- Questions about your team
- Questions about your customers
- Questions about your business (or your part of the business)
I've printed out his list and am already ticking the boxes (will find time next week to write them down properly and add them to our normal standard quarterly management report)
If that wasn't enough to start the last Friday of the quarter with, Liz Strauss asks yet another (good) question from us: What new Friends have you met and How have you made Life easy for them? Not just one question, three questions (but fortunately and typical Liz, she gives possible answers to each one of them - but you have to read them 'over there').
- New Links connect blogs. New relationships connect people.
- New people can add dimension and depth to your thinking and ideas
- What new friends have you met lately? How have you made getting to know your blog easy for them?
Well, personally I have to answer those questions with: yes, yes and yes, but not as easy as it could be - have put that on my list for Q2 ;-)
Then, last but not least - and funnily enough related to question 3 on Liz's list, I promised Dawud I would look into deleting no-follow from my typepad blogs. Already got a first answer back about this subject from the friendly typepad people themselves, now all I have to do is find T I M E.
My Q1 is:
I've finished writing my 12 page booklet for our coming exhibition (my personal deadline was end of March), I've finalised our April Newsletter (my personal deadline was end of March), we've already - with one more day to go - surpassed our best ever quarter in turnover this quarter, we've already arranged our planned fixed storage facility to become even more flexible (our personal deadline was end of Q2, so way ahead of time), had 2 very interesting and filled with freely shared wisdom lunch meetings with my mentor, re-joined the most friendly BNI-chapter again, improved - I think - my blogs to become more 'interactive' and link love giving, found lots of new and interesting blogs and blog-friends, had many interesting and sometimes thought-provoking conversations with them and......
Like I said at the beginning of this post: I've given up with planning today, tomorrow is another happy Spring day. See you then.
