What gets measured gets managed – Peter Drucker

I’m with Drucker on this one so I track things quantitatively:

• revenues by client;
• revenues by date (lots of businesses have seasons);
• revenues by type of offering (sometimes ideas don’t do as well as you think they will!);
• revenues by historical comparison (it’s helpful to understand exactly how you’re growing);
• costs – whether recurring or one-time;
• costs – whether fixed or variable.

On the personal side, I track my spending and my time (so I know whether or not I exercise as much as I intend to!).

…people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. – Maya Angelou

That said, sometimes feelings are the better metric. I’m not as good at this one, so I think of this quote often. If you prove a point but at the expense of the other person’s feelings, you probably still won’t get anywhere.

Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts. –  Albert Einstein 

Einstein has it exactly right. There is no one suitable metric for everything. You have to run the numbers and understand your data. But not everything can be boiled down to numbers, nor should it.

What do you measure in your business and in your personal life? How do you measure it?

I recently read The Intersection of Joy and Money by Mackey Miriam McNeill and found it to be time well spent — a worthwhile read towards a worthwhile pursuit. Two things really struck me about the book:

1) McNeill talks about how good she is with money in the conventional sense — prodigious saver, patient investor, smart consumer. But she also confesses how she was fearful about money, too frugal sometimes, and just not 100% at ease with her relationship to money. I’m also very “good” with money so to hear from someone with similar good habits that there is more to consider was comforting.

2) I loved how McNeill talked about “choosing again.” When you make a money mistake, say you overspend, just choose again going forward to go back to smarter spending. The symplicity of Choose Again as a mantra really resonated.

The Intersection of Joy and Money by Mackey Miriam McNeill is a well-organized book with inspirational anecdotes but also meaty how-to’s and strategies. I highly recommend it, even if you already know a lot about personal finance and especially if you don’t.

I’ve been to a lot of fun conferences and talks lately. It makes me terribly behind on my work but it’s also a part of my work because I get inspiration and information to share. In just the past week, I’ve attended the Savor the Success Rock The World conference, the 92nd Street Y talk with George Lopez, and a panel discussion featuring Asian-American authors Lisa Takeuchi Cullen and Alison Singh Gee and author’s agent Kirby Kim. Here are some of my favorite takeaways:

Heather Thomson, founder of Yummie Tummie, at Savor the Success Rock The World:

• There is no better way to learn than by working at a start-up
• Luck and fate play a big role. This is true on the upside and a down swing
• Ideas are your money — you have to protect your design integrity
• Let the passion take you over
• Don’t start the business if you have doubts
• On landing in Oprah’s Favorite Things within three months of launching: We built a website immediately with sticks and glue. We’re just overhauling it now (five years later) and investing $300k. You can go a long way with sticks and glue
• On taking $18k in orders at her first trade show: When you have that kind of momentum, you never pull the rope back

George Lopez, comedian and author, at the 92nd Street Y interviewed by Judy Gold:

• On turning 50: AARP wished me Happy Birthday before any of my family members
• On taking 4-5 showers per day: I have more epsom salts than colognes
• The George Lopez Show was the greatest thing that happened to me (CCL’s note: I love it when people appreciate their success!)
• On his driving force: I wanted to be somebody more than nobody
• To the audience member who is still an aspiring comic at age 46 with no agent yet: You’re never too old. Continue to write and go to clubs

The Time Inc A3-sponsored writer’s panel:

• Alison Singh Gee – I wrote one scene at a time while teaching (CCL’s note: there is no excuse about not having the time!)
• Kirby Kim (on what he looks for as an agent) – I want to be moved
• Lisa Takeuchi Cullen – you can’t have spirits and ghosts in a Chirstian-published novel (CCL’s note: ok, that’s not a business tip, but a super fun fact)
• Alison Singh Gee (on what it took to get published) – I decided it’s going to happen. I’m going to do whatever I have to do. Make your life about this process
• Lisa Takeuchi Cullen – workshops and conferences are tremendously helpful
• Lisa Takeuchi Cullen – Getting ideas isn’t difficult. The difficulty is in figuring out which are books and which are great ideas
• Kirby Kim – Don’t wait to be done (before trying to get published)
• Kirby Kim – Is what you have commercially viable?
• Alison Singh Gee – you have to take the reins on publicity. Who are you going to contact? How will you get the word out? (Gee asked 50 influential friends to post on their Facebook!)
• Lisa Takeuchi Cullen – your agent is the primary editor. Your book editor acquires

Traditional employment and entrepreneurship have more in common than you might initially think. Entrepreneurs used to be seen as carrying more risk, but when you look at all the corporate restructurings, you realize just how much risk there also is in staying with traditional employment. Entrepreneurs are seen as juggling multiple hats – sales, marketing, accounting – all while executing the day-to-day of their business. Employees also need to juggling managing their career while executing their jobs. This includes networking, branding, and even personal finances. If you are making the employment to entrepreneurship transition, take advantage of the overlaps between the two paths. Here are three areas where you can use your employment experience to support your transition into entrepreneurship:

Cash flow
Cash is king to an entrepreneur. Cash flow enables you to stay open for business so that your customers can find you, your idea can get traction and you can get better as an entrepreneur. Your years in corporate might contribute to savings that can float you during the early days of your start-up. However, an overlooked benefit of those corporate years is your network. These corporate contacts know your value already and could be your first paying customers or referral sources. Your own employer might be a potential customer – organizations buy products and services from small businesses. Finally, contracting back to your employers as a consultant, even if it’s for work unrelated to your new business, is a source of cash flow not to be overlooked or underappreciated. If that consulting work enables you to launch and invest back in your new business, then it’s worthy work.

Branding
Your former employment with a big corporation may not win you bragging rights with your fellow entrepreneurs, but it’s great for branding with your future customers. I am working with a design client who has worked with top firms in her previous corporate life in-house and with agencies. These projects with brand-name firms have been very helpful in building credibility with clients more quickly than if she had to only focus on the clients of her new agency. Your past employment experience can lend you credibility while your business is still new and building its own client base. Remember to consider not just your former employers but the clients that you worked on at these employers, as these clients also might be large, brand-name firms.

Structure, resources and camaraderie
As an employee you had set business hours, a workspace and supplies, and a team of colleagues both to work with and to relax with. Carry this with you into entrepreneurship. Set a work schedule so you don’t fall into the trap of either working all the time or running personal errands while you should be building your business. Set up a proper office space, even if it’s just a carve-out in your bedroom. You don’t have to buy a bulk package of binder clips, but you want to invest in a good chair, proper lighting, and whatever you need to have a supportive environment right away. Build a team of entrepreneurial colleagues, whether that’s joining entrepreneurship groups or just designating friends to be support partners.

Your corporate experience is valuable to your transition into entrepreneurship, so embrace that time and take advantage of what it offers. That said, there are some habits, beliefs and behaviors from the traditional employment world you want to leave behind. Cash flow will not be as steady as your paycheck, at least in the beginning. It took me years before I felt comfortable with this volatility, but I’m getting better every day! Unless you worked in marketing in your traditional job, branding might be something you took for granted as part of working with a brand-name corporation. When you’re on your own, you need to develop your own branding. Finally, the corporate comforts you experienced as an employee should be a reminder of what support you might need but you’ll need to learn to do with less when you’re starting out. Running your start-up like a big corporation could cause you to spend more money than you have! So use the good from your days in corporate without the bad habits.

How are you going to use your corporate experience in your transition to entrepreneurship?

I had the good fortune of attending a fascinating business conference organized by The Corporate Agent. Inside Edge 2013 (April 17-20) focused on how small businesses could effectively pitch and win business with big corporations. There is too much to summarize from the 4-day event but here were some of my favorite takeaways:

As entrepreneurs we aren’t reward on our efforts. Our results are our rewards. – Angelique Rewers, The Corporate Agent

Sometimes improving your results is not about what you need to do; it’s what you need to STOP doing – Angelique Rewers, The Corporate Agent

The only person who can stop, limit or restrict your success is you – Angelique Rewers, The Corporate Agent

Knowledge not acted on is useless trivia – Larry Broughton

Representation, Observation, Interaction = ROI of LinkedIn – JD Gershbein, Owlish Communications

Be flexible about how you do things, but be inflexible about why you do things – Scott Robley, Infusionsoft

Successful businesses quit survival marketing – Scott Robley, Infusionsoft

Branding is not a logo, tagline, name, design, message, marketing, social media, or website. Branding is a desired perception. – Re Perez, Branding For The People

You don’t own your brand; you shape it – Re Perez, Branding For The People

Great marketers don’t make stuff. They make meaning – Seth Godin

People buy people. Who you are is always more important than what you do – Eiji Morishita, Genius Marketing Academy

Make the pie bigger. Be the tide that lifts all boats – Eiji Morishita, Genius Marketing Academy

Don’t confuse business with charity. Serve clients who can afford you. Give to those who can’t – Eiji Morishita, Genius Marketing Academy

Content isn’t King. Insight is King – Angelique Rewers, The Corporate Agent

It was so nice getting away from the daily grind of the business to think more broadly, get inspired, and meet new people. An added bonus was staying in an ultra-luxurious resort (and yes, I made time for a spa treatment). There was the requisite swag bag, including a treat from one of my favorite boutiques, Pink Olive.

While I’m climbing my way back after four days away, it’s a worthwhile investment. What investment or conference do you have on tap to forward your business in 2013?

I recently read “Extreme Productivity” by Robert Pozen. I’m a big fan of self-improvement books, and this one was too tantalizing to pass up – Pozen has an esteemed career, juggling executive leadership positions in investment management with a teaching post at Harvard Business School and with authoring six books. How does he do so much all so well?

The book was a fun read, and I got some good strategies – manage up, manage down, be clear about your priorities. But I was disappointed after reading it. I wasn’t disappointed by Pozen – he delivered the productivity tips he promised. Rather, I was disappointed because what I really wanted to know was the day-in-the-life stuff. What does a typical day look like for someone who accomplishes so much? What are some of the routines? How does he make day-to-day decisions when unexpected things come up?

I also realized this type of day-in-the-life peek is a question I get asked a lot about my own schedule. I also do a lot of things, though not on as grand a scale as Pozen. So in the spirit of what I wanted to get out of Pozen’s book, here is my warts-and-all answer to how I spend my time – no neat tips and strategies, just the raw action steps I take, using this week as an example.

• Highlight in yellow

I have all of my To Do’s listed in an Excel spreadsheet that categorizes by my different businesses – SixFigureStart, Presco, FBC Films, comedy, etc. I also keep my personal goals in the same spreadsheet so there are categories for exercise, finance, family, and household. Everything is in there, even though some things invariably get pushed out. The most important things for the week get highlighted in Yellow. This way, I see them more vividly. Unfortunately, sometimes I still push them out but most of the time the visual urgency helps me stay on track.

• Triage by impending deadline

Many of the things I list are important so I can’t just prioritize by importance. I also look at the deadline. I have 2 comedy shows end of April. I have to send out my invites now. I have several article ideas for my various blogs. This is important too but there really isn’t a deadline for these, so I’ll push these out further than my comedy invites. I repeat this decision-making trade-off for each of my activities.

• Prioritize revenue-generating calls and emails

I always make sure that every day includes activities directly related to revenue. Writing doesn’t count because even though some of my clients were readers who then contacted me for actual coaching, writing overall is still an indirect source. Direct activities include placing a call to pitch a specific project or answering a prospect’s inquiry. When I’m feeling flustered, I make sure every day includes revenue-generating calls and emails, even if it’s just a few.

• Always book live meetings

Ideally, each week has a live, sales-oriented meeting but sometimes my live meeting is just keeping up with old colleagues and friends. I always make sure each week has several live, person-to-person interactions to ensure that I’m not hiding behind my computer too much and that I’m actively making connections in a high-touch way. This week, I had 7 live meetings: 2 were executing on work previously sold; 2 were directly related to selling; and 3 were general networking meetings. This is a good ratio for me because it is more heavily weighted towards revenue generation than general networking.

• Keep moving even when I’ve messed up

I spent too much time on email this week. A number of the emails were solid sales-related inquiries, but then I would stay on email just to knock out a few more things….Invariably I ate up time I should have spent elsewhere. Still, as I look back on my week, I have solid leads in my sales pipeline and I have been responsive to current clients, so net-net I’m ok.

Next week will have different activities but I’ll pick and choose in a similar way as I did above. What are your routines and systems for how you manage your schedule?

Just so you know that everyone has the ups and downs, here is one of mine:

On Easter Sunday, I was not online. That’s a good thing for work/life balance, and in year 6 of our business, I pride myself on having stronger boundaries now than when we launched. That said, when I did meander online, I saw an email, voicemail and Tweet from the BBC asking me to be a last-minute guest on their world news program with a typical audience of 43 MM listeners! I responded when I saw it but it was over an hour after the fact, and they got someone else. You’ve got to be fast when dealing with the press — a miss on my part:(

The very next day, Fox Business called me for a last-minute guest appearance, and this time I responded within minutes and appeared on the show — a hit:)

You win some and lose some! I did get to speak to the BBC producer and she took down my cell phone for the future – a small hit! But I forgot to ask her how she heard of me, and I really like to track that info – a small miss. You win some and lose some!

In the beginning stages of your service business, there are lots of reasons to give free advice:

• You get practice
• You get feedback
• You get testimonials
• You get publicity
• You get referrals

As your business matures and you are able to steadily charge for your services, you should expect to decrease the free advice you give and instead:

• use the time to work with paying clients
• use the time to develop business
• protect the value you are charging others for by not giving it away for free

However, even as my coaching business has grown over 600% since we launched, I still give some advice away for free. Here are some parameters:

• Advice to the press – some of my writing, sourcing and media appearances has led to paid expert spots, but the majority of my PR work is unpaid, and that’s a cost of marketing. I do track that my PR time is still adding to my brand, and that revenues have occurred as a result;
• Access to my ideal market – if an audience is large enough and closely aligned with my ideal client, then I will guest blog or give a talk. I have even experimented with offering free consultations, though that has been too time-intensive for the payoff (at least in my case; you want to check for yourself);
• Giveaway to my network – if someone comes referred to me, even if I think they may not be a prospective client, I may still talk to them as a courtesy to the person who referred them. It’s an investment in networking, so you need to think about how many of these you will do and who in your network warrants that courtesy;
• Fun or meaning for me – sometimes I’m just intrigued by the person’s situation, and I want to help with a consultation. As with networking giveaways, you want to have discipline in how much and to whom you offer this courtesy.

You never want to undercharge or feel exploited. However, I do believe that even when your business is profitable and busy, there are great reasons to continuing doing free work. If you have solid reasons that don’t detract from your current work, then be generous with your expertise. It does not diminish your value to share your talent for free.

For the record, I don’t have a specific beef with Sheryl Sandberg or the idea behind, “Lean In.” I wrote my Forbes post on alternatives to Sandberg’s “Lean In” because it’s clear from the polarizing reaction to it that some people just won’t read it. I haven’t read it and don’t plan to because there are so many books of more interest, and I feel like I got the gist of it from other talks by her. The thesis strikes me as limited in scope and not too ground-breaking. I’m sure there are nuggets in the book that I’d enjoy but that’s true of many books. In my Forbes post I share books specifically by moms with careers and businesses. In an earlier Presco Presco post on 10 Business Books I Love, I list more of my favorite business books, written by men and women, parents or not. Here are still more favorites:

Abundance by Peter Dimandis and Steven Kotler

On technological advances that call doomsday thinking into question. For a cynic like me, it was so refreshing to read an optimstic book like this

Shock of Gray by Ted Fishman

On our aging population and what that means for society, economy, and intergenerational relationships. Scary and fascinating!

anything by Martin Seligman

I have read several of his books: Flourish, What You Can Change…And What You Can’t, Learned Optimism. All are fantastic.

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

Helpful tips on changing your behavior interspersed with powerfully written anecdotes

I have had money on the brain recently. Last week, I did a piece for Work Reimagined on sequester survival tips (could you survive a 20% drop in income?) and for Forbes.com on asking for a raise. I recently taught a class on salary negotiation at Barnard, and this week, I’m leading a workshop for entrepreneurs on revenue planning. Money issues are highlighted in my work even more than usual. But this is a good thing because entrepreneurship and money are soul sisters. It’s not just about passion and meaning in your business and life; money plays a critical role. So, if you haven’t been watching your financial health, here are seven actions you can take right now:

1. Get your free credit report at https://www.annualcreditreport.com/cra/index.jsp. Check that all accounts truly belong to you and that payments are current.
2. Set up a reminder to order a credit report every four months. You can get a free report each year from each of the three main credit bureaus. If you time your requests four months apart, you check all three reports and you check your credit on a regular basis (a great habit to catch any mistakes or identity theft sooner than later).
3. Contribute to your SEP-IRA or other tax advantaged account in the next 30 days (to beat the tax deadline).
4. Brainstorm a crowdfunding campaign. Even if you don’t launch one, it’s an exercise in creativity and innovation to imagine what you would want to fund. Is there a project you’re meaning to launch?
5. Review your business expenses – do you need all of these items and services, or is there something you can cancel or substitute?
6. Call a client who is past due. Cash in hand matters more than revenues.
7. Call a favorite client to check-in. Don’t just pay attention to the ones who complain.