Last week I gave out some great tips on making m*oney in your business, one of which was - for one week accept all the f*ree money that comes your way – such as a friend offering to buy dinner.  (For the whole article and to see that suggestion in context, click here. )

On that note, I have some great news for you if you are a workroom to the design field fabricating window treatments, bedding, etc.

My very good friend Susan Kostelecky, the host of the Custom Sewing Institute, has teamed up with the Helser Brothers, the great purveyors of awesome window hardware, finials, and poles, and the Helser Brothers are GIVING AWAY the last available seat to this year’s Custom Sewing Institute Creative Camp! All you have to do is say why you should go to camp in 50 words or less (and pay for your travel) and YOU could be the lucky winner.  (You’ll want to check out the rest of their blog too – they are funny guys!)

The online application needs to be filled out before the 15th, so you do need to get right on it.  Click here to enter.  And talk about f*ree m*oney – this is worth $1250.00!

Pictured here are a couple of projects from last year’s event – this is good stuff!  Be sure to contact www.csisews.com directly to get on their waiting and newsletter list.

On a related but different note, I mentioned last week that Verizon has revamped all of its pricing, but you have to call and find out if the new pricing will benefit you. And one of our readers – thanks Michelle! – posted that AT and T is doing the same.  So if you use either of those cell providers, be sure to get in touch with them.

Be sure to apply for Helser Brother’s great give-away – if you are a workroom, nothing should be holding you back.  Let me know how it goes!

Here’s to Designing Your Success,

-Mary Larsen

Don’t forget the VERY SPECIAL DISCOUNT for those of you on the call…..  it ends on Friday, May 29th!

Register for the Mastermind Group NOW by visiting the link below and getting the new improved discount pricing

www.growyourdesignbiz.com/mastermind.htm

If you missed the fabulous call you can order it here for $10 – the audio download will be available next week and I will send you a link to the program.  It is filled with things that you can do RIGHT NOW to boost your summer biz!

AAAANNNNNNDDDDDDDD…..

Another fabulous opportunity for you – I know you are really going to love it!

The Society of Design Professionals is hosting FIVE F.R.E.E. webinars NEXT WEDNESDAY on great fabulous topics (and yes, I am presenting - which include:

DesAnn Collins
Tools for Success

Mary Larsen
Clients through email Newsletters

Jill Butler
Tools for Transforming You and Your Business

Kathryn Bechen
PR Pizzazz: How to Get Free PR for Your Interior Design/Decorating/Redesign/Organizing/Real Estate Business

Diana Hudson Kresnye
Win Clients by Creating Computer-Generated “Design Boards

You can learn about EACH PRESENTATION by clicking HERE, then scroll down the page a bit for ALL the info.  For each seminar you can push the “show details” button in the lower right of each descriptor box.

I THINK you need to register for each webinar individually – I know several of the presenters personally – this is going to be good stuff!

Fit it in if you can – and if you can’t make it I think you can get each webinar for $10 or $40 for all five.

Hope to see you on the webinar!

Here’s to Designing Your Success™,

-Mary

But that’s not always the case.  I have had many vacations where getting back to work was the last thing I wanted to do.  So today I am going to share with you some of the tricks I use to help me get back to it!

Getting Back to Work

• Make Your List. If you are anything like me, you probably made a list before you left for vacation.  If not, do one now.  Just do a “brain dump” of everything on your mind, and everything new and exciting that came up for you on vacation.  Then categorize by priority and deadlines.
• Ease into Things. Once you are in motion it is easier to stay in motion (hey!  physics from a designer!).  So you might want to start slowly with the easy things, to get back into the groove.
• Take Breaks. Okay, if you are on a roll, just keep going!  But if you find your mind wandering, take a break.  Take 10 minutes to move around – start that load of laundry, go through the mail – but then get back to work.
• Don’t be Too Hard on Yourself. If it takes you a bit to get back in the groove, that’s okay.  But be responsible.  Decide WHEN you will get back to work, and then do it.
• Reward Yourself. So you’ve made it back!  Good for you! Now truly take the night off, so you can be back into things tomorrow!

What do you do to get back into the swing of things? I’d love to know what works for you – comment below!

Have a good one!

-Mary Larsen

I know you have heard it before – once you take the time to train someone to do the things you don’t like to do – or the things that keep you from doing the things that you love – you are suddenly a lot more free to spend time with clients and the money making ventures of your business. This allows you to make  more money which will more than cover the expense of your asssistant.    But as all things go – you will only hire an assistant when you are desperate to do so.Even though you KNOW it will help your business, you put it off til you are desperate… and then say “why didn’t I do this earlier???” So consider this a little “push” to get you in the place you need to be to make that step now!

Here are some of the things I rely on Linda for:

• responding to frequently asked questions by email
• entering expenses and purchases into quickbooks
• writing press releases
• submitting press releases on line and to print publications
• shipping items
• receiving items
• preparing my “client kit” for all client visits
• keeping my schedule
• running out for lunch
• bringing in lunch
• bringing in chocolate, treats, and special things
• contacting clients for follow-up
• running any and all errands
• and the list goes on and on and on….

Now is it time for YOU to hire an assistant?  For the next couple of days write down everything that you do in your day – then review your list – what could an assistant do for you?  Design work – your assistant could pull fabric swatches, paint swatches, and even draft a room plan based on your suggestions.  Client follow-up – your assistant could manage follow-up calls, client gifts and thank yous, and getting all things ready for your appointments.  Admin – opening mail, logging calls, replying to emails….. What can a assistant do for you???

If you already have an assistant, I would love for you to share what tasks YOU delegate by commenting below.

Have a great week!

-Mary Larsen

WE Magazine for Women named me as a “Top 101 Women Bloggers to Watch” in 2009 – and I was really thrilled to receive the honor. If you haven’t read my previous blog posts – you should. Lots of helpful information here from me AND your peers – good stuff!

What was funny/not about this honor is that WE Magazine caters to women in their 40s – and I don’t turn 40 til NEXT WEEK! HA! But really, just like everyone else, I am looking around saying – how did 40 happen already???

At the end of May I am hosting a webinar in conjunction with the ADE on “The Art of Window Treatments: How to Add a Proven Revenue Stream to Your Staging, Redesign and Decorating Business.” This will be a great introductory look at adding window treatments to your business if it is not something you are doing already. I’ll keep you posted with more details as they develop.

Don’t forget I will be at the EXPO in Atlanta May 13-16! Here is a little blurb about the redesign class I am teaching – you might want to check it out.

And I have big plans for a retreat this fall for a lucky handful of you – and the topic is “money.” As in “how to make it work for you, and how to make more of it.” Just getting started on the details, but will keep you posted.

And for today’s Marketing Minute I am going a bit off of the beaten path – I am hosting 19 of my family for an Easter/Big FOUR-OH (before the big trip with my siblings to the Dominican Republic to REALLY celebrate) dinner and I thought these tips from Southern Accent Magazine on how to host a dinner party were really helpful - and beautiful, too.

Happy Easter!

Here’s to Designing Your Success™,

-Mary Larsen

The other week one of my “second timer” mastermind group members (menaning she got so much out of it the first time around she (and several others!)  decided to do it again!) sent me an article that she recently read that reminded her of me.  (Oh!  and a NEW mastermind group starts right around the corner in June!  I haven’t updated ALL the new (like an online member site) info yet but you should start planning now on joining – it is SO worth it!  Click here to learn more!)

The tips she sent are too good to not share!  So thank you Deb Landy!

The following tips are adapted from the February 2009 Issue of Entrepreneur magazine.

• Take a Chance. I am doing a LOT of that this year – shaking things up, seeing what might happen.  The riskiest decision you make might bring you the biggest reward.  What can YOU shake up?
• There’s no Crystal Ball. But you don’t have to stay “safe” and take baby steps either.  Take big leaps to learn about yourself and what you can do.
• Once You Make a Decision – Move Forward! You all know how much I love this one – it’s ALL about making a decision.  So make it – and move on!
• What’s the WORST that can happen? I use this one a lot to free myself up when I am being a scaredy-cat!
• Keep Moving Out of your Comfort Zone. This is a tough one for me – I LIKE comfort.  My design business is around developing Comfort!  But you gotta stretch to grow!
• Don’t Stress About Coming Up with the Big Idea. Big ideas don’t necessarily come easy… and isn’t the small ideas that sometimes really make the big difference?

So what are you doing to take some risk in your business?  Would love for you to hit reply and let us all know!

Have a great week,

-Mary

First – one of my very good friends – on the one year anniversary of being breast cancer free – was diagnosed with cancer in her lymph nodes and was in surgery 4 days later.  On the very next day Melissa Galt (another great design business resource) sent a 6 minute video about Inflamatory Breast Cancer (IBC) that was just unbelievable. The news report is from 2006 and there has been a lot more awareness since that time, but I know I had only heard of IBC one other time and quite frankly had forgotten about it.  So for all of you women and for all of the women YOU know – here is the video – VERY worth watching.

THEN – about two days later another one of my favorite business gurus on the topic of sales – Art Sobczak of Business by Phone sent out a VERY personal email titled “The Most Important Tip Ever” in regards to the loss of his mother and the unfortunate lack of communication among her caregivers in her very rapid two month decline.  I contacted Art and asked if I could share his newsletter – again, his story and his tips could be lifesavers for you.  His newsletter follows, and I know you will be touched.

So how to tie this to business?  Be diligent.  In all that you do. With Warm Regards and Thoughts for all that YOU may be going through right now – Mary

Greetings,

I’ve written and spoken millions of words to readers and my audiences over the past 26 years. Perhaps none as personal, or potentially important to some people as today’s.

This won’t be about sales, specifically, but it will involve using much of what we do in sales, and it applies to anyone, in sales or not.

My mother, Rita Sobczak, 84, passed away unexpectedly Monday. Her health took an amazingly rapid decline over the past eight weeks. She went from a person who acted, looked, and felt like someone in their low 60’s to almost unable to care for herself.  Up until two months ago she still volunteered regularly at a retirement community, and worked part-time in my office. For years she has inserted and mailed the monthly newsletter many of you have received. I have a photo of her at my Telesales Blog http://www.telesalesblog.com

As the only child of my only remaining parent, when her health took a sudden dip, I of course became involved in her health care dealings. Or, I should say, the lack and mismanagement of.

I fortunately never had the necessity in the past to immerse myself in ongoing, fairly complex medical situations. When I did over the past few months, I was shocked, saddened, and angered by what was happening. I formerly looked at healthcare kind of like something else I knew little about and am slightly intimidated by: taking a car to a mechanic. I just assumed that you went in with a problem, and they fixed it. I was wrong.

As I became more involved, I saw a gross lack of communication between doctors, and also, almost unbelievably, amongst staff in the same office and on the same hospital floor. I saw mistakes that could and should be prevented.
We experienced at times, cold, insensitive staff; I’ve seen better service from the teenager clerk at the convenience store.

Overall, I saw a system that, although is a business, is certainly not run like one. I guess perhaps you don’t need to when you can charge what you want, run people through like cattle, and not have accountability. Thinking about it, I can’t even really call it a “system,” since that would require entities all working together.

And, arguably, we experienced negligence. In fact, a close friend and ex-CEO of a major health organization told me I might have grounds for potential legal action, as did an attorney that specializes in such things. However, I decided not to pursue that, since money is not what I’m after, any proceedings would be drawn out and exhausting, and it certainly would not bring my mother back.

Instead, I decided to use my unique forum to communicate with you, my over 56,000 subscribers, and hopefully hundreds of thousands of others. What I have to say might just prevent for you some of the things we went through. Some of you may already be aware of what I’m going to say, but for others, well, you might be as surprised as I was.

Here goes:

-First, I can’t stress this enough: TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR OWN HEALTHCARE. Or, do it for those you have responsibility for, especially the elderly.
Do not believe that when you enter the “system”
you will be placed on a conveyor belt with no worries on your part, reactively coming out all fixed on the other end. Oh, you’ll be on the conveyor belt alright– often a broken and inefficient one.

-Be sure to do your “pre-call planning” before every visit or call. Question everyone. Demand clear answers. As I’ve discussed with sales situations, do not accept “fuzzy phrases” such as “we’ll go from there,” “we’ll take a look at that at some point,”
“there might be some other things we’ll probably need to look at,” and other obtuse language. Do not be afraid to say, “What does that mean, exactly?”
There are dumb questions in sales. There are NO dumb questions when a life is involved. Be a pain-in-the-ass. I was at times, because that’s what was required to get action.

-When multiple doctors, clinics, and testing facilities are involved, ask WHO is responsible for communicating the information to each other, WHEN it will be communicated, and WHAT will happen to it. This is one area that especially astounded me with the lack of communication between entities. Upon release from a hospital stay, one doctor ordered an outpatient procedure be done within a couple of days. Well, those instructions never left the paper it was written on until I uncovered it almost a week later. Overall, I was shocked that there was not a “point person”
to take control and coordinate things. I mean, for gosh sakes, most businesses have account managers who are responsible for every detail of a particular customer. Why does healthcare not have this for patients? Or, should that be the primary- care physician’s job? Just wondering.

-Just like in sales, always demand to know the “next step.” After a procedure, visit, test, or whatever, ask WHAT will happen next, and WHEN. If it seems like too long in the future, ask WHY. You must convey a sense of urgency since they always won’t. My mother could have attested to that–if she had the chance. I finally received a call back from a doctor’s office after I had called twice asking about the lab results from a procedure performed one WEEK earlier.
The call came minutes after the paramedics pronounced her dead. And something was found in those results. A bit late.

-If you do not like the answers or treatment received, get another opinion. Find another doctor. You are the customer.

According to Janet Lynn Mitchell, author of “How to Manage Your Health Care, “Medical mistakes kill between 44,000 to 98,000 hospitalized Americans each year. Thousands more are injured causing permanent disabilities, many not even knowing their doctors are at fault.” Scary stuff.

Finally, this is not meant to be an indictment of every health care professional and organization.
After all, we are dealing with humans performing jobs. I have to think most of them got into their profession because they care about helping people.

I’ve always said that nursing (along with teaching) is one of my most admired and respected professions in the world. And there were some wonderful, brilliant, caring, on-top-of-it people we ran into along the way, and my thanks go out to those individuals.

But what I now know, and will be an advocate for is that your healthcare, or that of someone close to you, is not something that anyone else will care about as much as you. To maximize your chance for success, treat it like you would any other area of life in regards to getting the result you want: do not rely on others to do it for you. Take responsibility, and take action.

Best wishes,

Art

Leadership Matters
By Nancy McGuire, McGuire Consulting, Inc
(Be sure to contact Nancy by clicking above if you need any help with leadership development!)There is no one way to be a perfect leader, but there are many ways to be a great one. If you have leadership responsibility, even simple actions can mean the difference between outstanding and poor results. Here are the first five of 10 of the most basic ways to ensure that you’re being an effective leader:

6. If you love somebody, set them free. When you have terrific people who have great developmental opportunities elsewhere, you need to let them move on. This can be especially hard when they are your top performers. What’s worse, you sometimes have to do this knowing you won’t be able to replace them in the short term. Still, you need to do the right thing and let them move on to their next opportunity. Trap: Some managers will hold on to their best people under the guise of “the needs of the business.” Although in the short term this can appear to be a good justification, it hurts you and your employee in the long term. Your organization will gain a reputation for being a trap; your good people may leave anyway, and the best people from other organizations will be reluctant to join your team. Tip: When you take a short term personnel loss, involve the rest of the team in handling his or her responsibilities until you have the ability to bring in a replacement. You may find a diamond-in-the-rough out there who was overshadowed by this top performer.

7. Take a look at yourself: Do people get you?It is essential that your team members understand you. So, your written word and verbal word must be equally clear. Trap: One of your responsibilities as a leader is to give performance feedback. If your feedback is too general, the recipient has a low probability of getting the message. Tip: Listen more than you talk. [Mary's Note: This is always a tough one for me, but it is so worth doing!]Ask your team members for their impressions of a person’s contributions.

8. Look at your team’s progress: Are they still storming when they should be performing? Teams often remain stuck in formulating plans rather than implementing them. [Another one of my favorites! Decide and DO!] Trap: Teams that continue to argue or follow competing or disconnected objectives are not likely to meet the end game. Look for warning signs such as continually re-visiting old decisions, missed deadlines, and lack of esprit-de-corps. Tip: If the team isn’t moving past the storming phase, consider changing the power structure or leadership within the team.

9. Get out of the way. As the leader, you need to keep an eye on the big picture. If you’re nitpicking small details and “adding value” where none was needed, your team will slow down. Trap: Many leaders think they need to add something. After all, isn’t that why you’re in charge? In fact, unless you need to alter significantly the direction or decision, you’re better off leaving well enough alone. Tip: Ask questions of the team concerning outlook for completion, rather than auditing progress at each individual step.

10.  Say thank you. And mean it. 

I am sure you found some inspiration here for you and your business – Which tips are you using now or will start using in your business today???

Have a great rest of the week!
-Mary

Here are a few things I do to help me “stay on task.”

1.  Know what you are trying to achieve. Every day, before I start my day, I look at my overall reason for being in business.  “To help other women make their businesses better and make the money they deserve while helping my business do the same.”  The simple question – are you working on something that is helping you achieve your goal?

2.  Decide what will make the biggest impact towards your reason for being in business. The bottom  line is that we can’t actually do everything – even all of the things on our to-do list – so pick the things to work on that have the most impact.  And….

3.  Be disciplined. When you find yourself and your mind wandering, be strict with yourself.  Literally say to yourself “focus!” That small word – spoken out loud – can have a wonderful effect.  You might even try standing up and saying it loudly – you’ll get right back on track.

Leave me a comment as to what YOU do to stay focused!  I’d love to know and share!