The Boss of You

The delightful Brigitte of Covet Chicago has a really beautiful giveaway up on her site right now (if we do say so ourselves): one lucky winner will receive a signed copy of The Boss of You along with a copy of Danielle Laporte‘s The Firestarter Sessions.

Brigitte has done a lovely job of describing why she’s chosen these two items and why she wants to share them. I’m touched to be included, and any day I get to be side-by-side with Danielle is a good day. I suggest you head on over there & join the party – and don’t forget to tell your friends.

Oh, and Brigitte also asked me a great question (“What was a catalyst that helped you define what you wanted out of your career – and what you didn’t? What did you learn about yourself?“) that I took as an opportunity to tell the world just how awesome my business partner is:

Emira makes me better at my work, period. I hope I do the same for her. (I assume I must, since she’s stuck around for 10 years. Or maybe I just make her laugh. I’m good with either.) We trust each other with everything from sharing the responsibility for each other’s financial well-being (no small thing, that) to the emotions that accompany the highs and lows of entrepreneurship.

The kind of relationship we have is rare. Like, unicorn rare.

The rest of my answer is here.

We had such a great time at the Conference of Creative Entrepreneurs in Seattle this weekend. It was my first conference with baby in tow, and as a result I wasn’t able to spend as much time hanging around and networking as I might have liked, but it was great to be out and about with such talented and creative folks. I particularly enjoyed our conversations with participants in our HR For the Self Employed workshop on Sunday.

I thought I’d follow up by posting the worksheet/handout we used for the session so that those who missed it can take a look. It should be pretty self-explanatory, but if anyone has questions please just post them in the comments. Oh, also this obviously isn’t just for conference attendees, but for anyone out there looking to craft a basic HR framework for their small business (even solo entrepreneurs) with a heavy focus on creating your ideal job description and benefits package. This is one of those things that in hindsight, we wish we’d included as exercises in the book itself.

Get the HR For the Self Employed worksheet here.

Where to begin? I have so very many thoughts on working (currently from home) with an infant lately. Thoughts that are constantly evolving as the days and weeks go by and the challenges of working with a newborn shift. This awesome post on working part-time with a wee one is a great read for those of you wondering how you might make working work, once a baby comes along.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about sleeping, naps and being a working mom of a babe (currently 5 and half months). Sleep is a big, big topic amongst the new parent set. How much your baby sleeps, doesn’t sleep, how regularly they sleep, where they sleep… it’s all riveting stuff. Prior to having my daughter I pictured my life with her involving lovely stroller walks through the neighbourhood to coffee shops and to get groceries. I thought that once I was working part-time again (which I started back in on at around her 3 month mark), I would alternate between stints working in the basement office during her naps and going out for neighbourhood jaunts on gorgeous summer days while she was awake. My hope was that it would all be quite fluid and just unfold as it would. Now, I wasn’t totally naive. I am a project manager at heart, and therefore a worst case scenario planner almost by instinct, and I had many, many friends with kids so I knew the complications that real-life parenting brings. What I wasn’t really expecting though was how protective of nap time I would become, and frankly, how it kinda takes the fun out of things in a rigid scheduling kind of a way.

This is not to whine, at all. Full disclosure: I love being a mom. About 200% more than I thought I would (and I really thought I was gonna love it, so this is saying something). But my protection of her nap schedule makes me kind of an overly scheduled bore sometimes. You see the way many babies (and certainly my baby) work is that they like routine. I turn, need some semblance of predictability in order to get work done and commit to deadlines/turn around times etc. So, when we’re both being pretty scheduled about life, things tend to work out pretty well. That means a typical day for me looks like this:

• 7am wake the baby up, if she’s still asleep so that she stays on schedule for the rest of the day (this is only about 1 of every 3 days as she usually wakes up around 5:30)
• 9am put her down for her first nap & I start checking emails, ticking a few small things off my to-do list for work
• 10am wake her up from first nap if she isn’t already up (that’s about half the time, the other half she’s woken herself up after 30-40 mins)
• 10-noon: we play, hang out, get her dressed, do baby stuff, occasionally we head out to run a quick errand like the bank or a doctor’s appointment (my doctor is around the corner) during this time, but the danger here is being out too long and having her fall asleep in her stroller, because then even a 5 minute stroller nap can mess up the next crucial stage…
• noon: down for her “long” nap. I put long in quotation marks as it is sometimes a misnomer. This is the nap that makes or breaks my work day. If she sleeps for 1 and half to two hours (which is a little more than half the time) I get work done like nobodies business. If, however, she only sleeps for 30 mins, I’m kinda screwed.
• 2pm: assuming she slept that long, I now go out and about and have my lovely stroller walks and visits with friends, errand running, groceries etc.
• 4-5pm ish: depending on the length of her afternoon nap, she’ll often have a little 20-30 min cat nap in the late afternoon. This one is so short that I rarely use it to get work done, unless I’m really on a deadline, so I use it for prepping dinner, laundry, housecleaning and general 50s housewifey things (tongue in cheek), sometimes this is when I have my shower for the day. About once a week I collapse and take this mini nap with her.
• 7-7:30pm: we start the bedtime ritual. These days getting her to sleep takes anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour. If the latter, by the time we’re done I’m zonked. But, depending on workload this is when I start working again.
• 8-10pm: Finish up a few things work wise.
• 10pm: I = pumpkin. Bedtime.

So that’s a typical day when I need to get work done. What about when I don’t need to get work done? Well the Catch 22 is that if I veer from that schedule for a few days, it will take a few days to get her back on it. So, the danger in straying is that my availability for work becomes really unpredictable, which doesn’t really work for me right now. I do have childcare in the form of my partner and a few days a week, during the summer, my step-daughter, and starting in September through a more formal arrangement, which allows me to have some predictable time every week to work regardless of how much she naps, but still, I’m loathe to get off schedule too much as then I feel unable to commit to deliverables.

How often am I working? Honestly, close to 7 days a week. There have only been a handful of days in the last 2 or 3 months that I haven’t used at least one of her naps to get something done.

The challenge for me arises mostly when I have friends, family etc. who want to visit, go for coffee, spend a day at the beach what-have-you and even though I’m on a quasi-mat leave right now, my availability to visit with people, while also balancing work, and my sanity is kind of limited to these few hours in the afternoon. That said, I love that I can spend as much time with my daughter as I have been able to, and I’m really lucky to have some very understanding clients who have been ok with her tagging along to meetings, or with me jumping off phone calls when she wakes up earlier than expected.

You’ll note that with the exception of her late afternoon cat nap I don’t “nap when she naps”, which is a piece of advice that pretty much everyone from your midwife to your old Italian neighbour will give to new moms. In my fantasy world, I’d be napping with her daily, but in my reality, it’s just not doable. I can say however that she’s a pretty decent night-time sleeper (up 2-3 times but right back to sleep after being fed), so I manage to get by.

Hello, friends. What’s new?

You may have noticed we’ve been a little, um, absent lately. It’s been about six weeks since we last blogged here, but we haven’t been slacking, no ma’am. Here’s what’s up:

We’re blogging weekly for BC Business magazine, for one thing – recent topics include getting over your fear of firing, the elusive quest for balance from an entrepreneur’s perspective, government grants for B.C. businesses, and improving client communication by getting curious. Emira even wrote a three part series on business partnerships. We’d love for you to come join us there, though I am hoping to get better at cross-posting stuff here when it’s relevant.

I’ve also been doing some public speaking lately, which has been a lot of fun. In late may, I gave a talk at Pecha Kucha Night Vancouver called “The Power of And,” where I had 20 slides + 20 seconds per slide to talk about why I love the internet, and what I believe is at the heart of the work I do for a living. (I’ve posted video of my talk below.) And at WordCamp Vancouver, I gave a talk to a room of WordPress designers, developers and bloggers called “Being Curious for a Living: How asking questions creates loyal clients (and better websites)”. Even if you’re not a web designer, I think anyone in the creative services industry could get something out of it. (That talk is below as well.)

Finally, we’re gearing up for an appearance at the Conference of Creative Entrepreneurs in Seattle in mid-August. It’s looking like a stellar congregation of people, so we hope to see some of you there!

Thanks for hanging in there through a busy time for us. We haven’t forgotten about you!

The Power of And (Pecha Kucha Night Vancouver)

Being Curious for a Living (WordCamp Vancouver)

I’m not sure how many web developers read this blog, but if any of you lovely people know a kick-ass coder who wants to work in a small Vancouver studio with amazing clients, please point them to Raised Eyebrow’s latest job opening, OK?

Here’s a bit more info from the Raised Eyebrow blog:

We’re excited to announce a new opportunity at Raised Eyebrow. Our little-web-studio-that-could is growing again, and we’ve got an opening for a Front-End Developer/Themer to help us build awesome websites for fabulous, mission-driven clients.

This is a position for someone with solid technical skills — someone who can rock HTML and CSS, who prides themselves on attention to detail and clean, elegant code. You’ll be turning design comps into themes for Drupal and WordPress sites, so experience with one (or both) of those CMS’s is preferred, but if you’re confident in your coding skills and are new to Drupal & WordPress, don’t let that stop you.

Because we’re a small shop, everyone here tends to wear a few hats, so we’re looking for someone with smarts, adaptability and a serious appetite for learning. We pride ourselves on the quality of our work, our efficiency, and our passion for our clients — and we’re looking for someone whose shares those values.

In our beautiful, heritage Gastown office, you’ll find a friendly team of experts, a ridiculously well-stocked tea cabinet, and abundant opportunities to work on projects that allow you to flex your technical muscles and bring your heart and ideals to work.

Sound like a fit for you (or someone you know)? The job description, with details on how to apply, is right here.

The fabulous Danielle Laporte did me the great honour of inviting me to contribute to her amazing entrepreneurial toolbox, The Firestarter Sessions. (It’s kind of like an e-book, but bigger & bolder — there are videos and worksheets and you just kind of have to experience it. In fact, Danielle calls it a Digital Experience for entrepreneurs.) She posed several questions about creating your online presence, and asked me to pick one and answer it. But, um, I misunderstood the instructions… I answered all of them. (Why yes, I am an overachiever.) Danielle gave me her blessing to post the answers she didn’t use — I thought they might be useful to some of you. This is number two. (The first one, “5 ways to be a great web design client,” is here.)

3 Keys to a Website That Sells

1. Simplicity. Everyone says this, but what they really mean is: Give people only as much information as they need, when they need it. (Read Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug for a super-short, awesome explanation of how simple works on the web.) You can have a lot of content on your site but still keep it simple.
2. Beauty. Looks matter, especially in what for most people is a visual medium. If you want people to buy your stuff online, give them big, detailed photos so they can see your products from every angle — just as they would if they were picking them up in a store. Create balanced, well-structured pages. Pay attention to typography. (And ask your web designer to advise you on this stuff.)
3. Personality. Infuse every aspect of your site with your spark. Consider all the details. Instead of “Leave a comment,” try “Philosophize” or “I have something to say, dammit!” Make it sing your tune. People will connect with you and it’s that connection that pulls them in and brings them back.

The Firestarter Sessions includes 19 sessions, 13 videos and 22 worksheets, and sells for $150 (with $5 going to charity). A live session with Danielle goes for about $500, so this is an amazing value. Buy your copy here.

The fabulous Danielle Laporte did me the great honour of inviting me to contribute to her amazing entrepreneurial toolbox, The Firestarter Sessions. (It’s kind of like an e-book, but bigger & bolder — there are videos and worksheets and you just kind of have to experience it. In fact, Danielle calls it a Digital Experience for entrepreneurs.) She posed several questions about creating your online presence, and asked me to pick one and answer it. But, um, I misunderstood the instructions… I answered all of them. (Why yes, I am an overachiever.) Danielle gave me her blessing to post the answers she didn’t use — I thought they might be useful to some of you. Here’s the first one.

5 ways to be a great web design client

1. Know what you like. How do you want your online presence to look, feel, function? (Knowing what you don’t like helps a lot, too, and can be a good place to start.)
2. Have specific goals. Start with the basics: What do you want out of your online communications? Sales leads? Branding? A place to express yourself? All of the above? (If it’s the latter, please help us out by weighing the relative importance of the other stuff.)
   Now drill down: How, exactly, will you measure success? Figure out a dollar figure, site traffic goals, conversion rates that constitute a successful website. Without goals, we can’t advise you well on how to meet them.
3. Ask questions. There really are no dumb questions. Be curious. When you inquire, you give us insights into what matters to you but more importantly, you help us serve you better. An openness to learning about how the web works is the best thing you can bring to the process.
4. Understand your deadlines. If we’re going to launch your site in time, there are things we’ll need from you along the way. Please respect our time and understand that if you’re late getting them to us, we can’t be held responsible for getting our part done on time.
5. Care about content. The biggest thing that all the best and most popular websites (and web personalities) have in common is that they give great content. Be of use to your community, give freely, and don’t waste their time. They’re not your “audience,” they’re — we’re — people who want to connect with you. If you take the time to refine your message, make it inviting, interesting, and unique, you will succeed. You could have a black-and-white one-page site set in Times New Roman and people would still come to visit.

The Firestarter Sessions includes 19 sessions, 13 videos and 22 worksheets, and sells for $150 (with $5 going to charity). A live session with Danielle goes for about $500, so this is an amazing value. Buy your copy here.

We wrote in our book about the idea of businesses hooking up together to co-promote, here was our example:

“… give discounts on your yoga clothing to everyone who brings a juice card from the healthfood store next door, and you in turn give out coupons for a free shot of wheatgrass with every purchase from your store.”

Lately I’ve seen some excellent examples of just this kind of co-promoting ’round the internets, including the two below, and thought I’d check in with all you smart gals to see if anyone else is doing anything creative to boost sales and help expand another small business by partnering up.

• Jennifer Perkins of the Naughty Secretary Club was asking on Twitter for a clothing designer that might want to user her jewelry on models for some co-marketing. This one is brilliant as it is potentially a way to both split photoshoot costs and co-promote two brands. Love it.
• I see through my local mama’s email list this morning that our favourite kid’s gymnastics studio (which happens to be owned by a very smart mamma, friend and The Boss of You reader) is doing a summer cross-promotion with a fitness studio across the street so that mammas (or dads I’m assuming) can get personal training across the street while their tots are doing their summer camp gymnastics. As a new mamma I can attest to the brilliance of this one and only wish that 14 week olds were old enough for summer gymnastic camps so I could take advantage!

Please share any creative ideas for co-promotion you’ve taken on in the comments.

A funny thing about being an author is that although you get to take most of the credit for your book, the fact is there’s a huge network of people and organizations involved in getting your book into readers’ hands: From your agent and your publisher to bookstores and libraries, bloggers and reviewers, the web of connections is actually quite mind-boggling.

One of the biggest hubs in that network is Amazon, which not only serves as a critical bookselling outlet, but also controls things like whether your book will become a Kindle e-book or an audiobook. (Although Amazon isn’t the only source of audiobooks, they own Audible.com, and they make their own decisions about what books to publish in audiobook format.)

Well, over the weekend I was checking our Amazon reviews, and much to my delighted surprise, I discovered that The Boss of You is now available in both audiobook and Kindle formats! This is huge for us — these days, I rarely have time to sit down with a printed book but I am becoming a huge fan of throwing an audiobook on my iPod and taking it to the gym with me (or out for a walk, or on my commute). And all the travelers I know swear by their Kindles. Not only does this increase the convenience factor for our book, but it’s also accessible to a whole new audience, including people with visual disabilities. Whoo!!

So, here’s a list of the new places you can pick up a copy of The Boss of You:

• Audiobook edition: Get your copy from Audible.com, or pick it up from iTunes.
• Kindle edition: Available exclusively from Amazon.

There’s one key person I want to thank for her contribution: Thérèse Plummer, who narrated the audiobook edition of our book. I’ve never met Thérèse, but she did a gorgeous job bringing our words to life and infusing them with warmth and approachability. What a wonderful gift it was to hear our text read aloud in her voice.

The organizers of the Conference for Creative Entrepreneurs (more details on the event, which Lauren and I are speaking at here) website has been posting some super handy tips lately in the format of “5 minute pre-conference tips”. For example:

• How to Optimize Your Etsy Shop
• Get an EIN (a handy thing for US based solo-entrepreneurs)

Overall, the blog is a pretty active place these days and full of useful info for business owners, including info on other events of interest. Those gals are so smart.