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In our courses, like Small Biz Group Coaching, we find that many of our participants are tired of managing their personal budgets by hand or with a clunky spreadsheet. Recently I found Mint.com, a personal financial management tool on the web. Once you grant it access to your online banking accounts, it downloads all of your transactions and balances into one place, looks for trends in your spending relative to your account history and to national financial data, and helps you monitor your progress with both your day-to-day investments and your long-term assets & debts.

Check it out—it’s super-easy and pretty powerful. I’ve been using it for about a month and have already noticed some trends in my spending which I hadn’t spotted in my system in Excel.

Networking is the practice of creating community. Creating a business requires creating teams of people. When you’re a small business, many of the people on your ‘team’ are other businesses and professionals you meet in your daily adventures.

• Offer value when you network—don’t just look for where you can take something for yourself.
• Listen for people’s commitments and how to acknowledge them and serve them.

Where can you build community? What communities are you already in?

• Friends and family—make sure that you know what they’re up to, too. 
• Can your friends and family articulate what you do and identify other people you’d like to help?
• Neighbors and acquaintances: are there people you know who don’t know what you do?

Networking in mixed crowds. Ask genuinely what people are interested in, and be prepared to answer the same question. No one wants to hear a sales pitch at a friend’s barbeque, but will gladly tell you all about their career or their vacation plans.

Followup. Make sure that you follow up with people you meet, to cement the connection you began to create when you first talked to them.

• Handwritten notes are your best bet
• Phone calls and emails, if personal enough, are a distant second
• Send referrals to people you do business with, or want to do business with

Convert to next steps

• Always ask people if they would like to have coffee or lunch to continue your conversation. 
• Carry a calendar, and ask to set a time right then.
• Have times & places in mind already so that you can cluster-book and become a regular at a cafe or restaurant—another potential new community.
• Confirm the appointment if you are unsure that they’ll make it

Manage your success

• There’s an truth in business which applies particularly well to networking: If you don’t measure it, you can’t manage it. 
• Track your leads and connections, and more importantly, track what you’ve done for them recently.

You are not the only one affected by your business decisions—partners and families are affected, too. In my capacity as a coach for entrepreneurs and business leaders, I’ve encountered a number of couples. Sometimes a business owner comes to me alone, and I only hear about a partner tangentially; other times partners show up at every meeting and effectively (or explicitly) serve as business partners as well. 

As the economy has gotten slammed by the credit planning (or lack thereof) of Wall Street and consumer spenders, many small business owners are piling on the hours to try to keep up. Sometimes they lower their prices, while others network more than they ever have. Sometimes they do both. Right now, many business owners who enjoyed focusing primarily on the product of their businesses (healthcare, art, etc.) are now having to pay much closer attention to their cashflows and marketing than they used to. Some business owners are looking seriously at whether they want to remain in business for themselves, and are considering part-time or full-time employment to create stability for their income. 

Who's affected by your decisions?

More… »

One of Causeit’s clients, Jess Bogli, a highly regarded K-12 health education consultant was interviewed on OPB today. Think Out Loud aired a piece on health education as it relates to Sarah Palin’s pregnant teenage daughter, Palin’s stance on abstinence education in schools, and how sex education fits into an overall health curriculum. 

Find out more at OPB and meet Jess Bogli; read her blog post below: 

Today I was interviewed by Emily Harris of OPB’s Think Out Loud. It was a great experience and I hope that people listen and take out of it the following:

Teens are having sex. Not all, not even the majority. But, many are sexually active.

Family and community support is important; when you have it. Some of our teens are homeless, living in horrible living conditions, do not speak English well enough to navigate our health system, etc.

Abstinence-Only programs are ineffective. They have been proven ineffective over and over again. They work for intent, but do not lead to behavior change.

Abstinent-Based programs are effective and promote abstinence, but include contraception lessons. They have lead to behavior change and abstinence for a longer period of time.

Sexuality Education should be skills-based, not just basic biology where students learn information and are tested out of a textbook.

In Oregon, we need teachers to be supported through professional development opportunities by the Oregon Department of Education (ODE). Currently there is no health education specialist on staff and we’ve recently lost our school health team lead. We need to advocate to ODE to support school health programs. Because healthy kids learn better…

Found on Guy Kawaski’s How To Change The World

My favorite company of the day: Posterous. If TypePad is blogging, and Twitter is nano-blogging, then Posterous is mini-blogging. Or, blogging for the rest of us. You send an email to post@posterous.com with pictures, PDFs, video, etc, and voila! you have a blog.

Causeit’s Fall ‘08 events are ready for you! Our courses combine rich, professionally designed workbooks and dynamic speakers on the business topics and skills you need to support your business and step beyond ordinary business. 

This fall, we’ll be offering:

biz plans 101

sat 9.20.08 | 10-4 @ the q center

business plans can be a roadmap for your business, provide freedom and stability in a changing economy, and empower both you and your team to make powerful, quick decisions. learn the basics of market analysis, project planning, organizational design and financial measures & projections. leave with an outline for your business plan and connections from networking!

 

small biz marketing 101

sat 10.4.08 | 10-4 @ the q center

get the word out about your business with our half-day workshop! having a great business is not enough to bring clients in the door. you can have a pitcher of the best lemonade in the world sitting on your porch, but until someone knows they can buy a glass from you, you won’t have a customer. learn about print and web marketing, the basics of p.r. and more! networking opportunities included!

 

small biz 101

sat 10.25.08 | 11-5 @ the q-center, portland or

come learn about intention in your business, basic planning, finances, the politics of business and the importance of public relations, marketing & etiquette at our sixth small biz 101 conference! workshops will be punctuated by networking-meet other small business people and have fun, and leave with a powerful, succinct plan for your projects!

 

Causeit, Inc. principal MJ Petroni now blogs for Just Out, Portland’s LGBTQ newsmagazine and website. Find out more by going to blogout.justout.com. Recent articles include T-Job Bank, MI5 to recruit gay spies, and more!