Planning, Adjusting and Mistakes

Last Saturday I visited a cousin's newly opened cafe. It was one week old. He told me that he is not getting the crowd or the desired revenue. Curious, so I decided to pay him a visit.

I asked for the shop's actual address. He said he is not sure and asked me to check out the Facebook page. Instead of registering as a local business, the cafe was registered as an individual. The address was not even there, good news was there is a location map. Maybe a map would be clearer? Wrong! The map contains two marks, one mark for his house, the other for his shop. I have to guess which was which. The page only has a picture of the cafe and did not show what was offered on the menu.

It is obvious that him and the partners did a poor job in planning. In any business, the first impression matters a lot. Even though the cafe is only one week old, I wonder how many customers had turned away.

At the cafe, I wanted to know the cafe's maximum capacity. He was not sure either. In any food retail outlet, the owner has to know how much each customer must spent and how many turnarounds per table in order to make a profit. On average, there should be at least three turnarounds in one business session.

As I spend more time with him, the more issues I noticed. Besides just poor planning, he has thrown himself into the deep end by dealing with customers and adjusting the operation issues. It would have been better to if he had a dry run with family and friends instead of enraging the wrath of the customers. In my opinion, he has 7 more weeks to get his act right. All the issues and mistakes are costing the business money. The business would have run out of money if the mistakes still remains.

I am a strong believer in making mistakes and taking risk. However, going into anything without proper planning is pure suicide. Thus far, he has adjusted his Facebook page. Hopefully he can sort out his operation kinks soon.

Return the Call!

Many times, I have heard people telling me their business is bad, not achieving the desire sales target, not getting invited for events etc. The complains of misery and missed opportunities seems go on and on.

Sometimes, these people can only fault themselves for all their miseries. Two weeks ago, I wrote an e-mail to make an inquiry for a product. Waited for two days. No reply. I call the shop, the shop person promised me that their sales person will call me back in two days time. That call was six days ago and no one has called me. Now, I have decided not to buy the item that I wanted anymore.

Whether is in business, in a office or a social circle, if you bother to return a miss call or make a call back, I am sure there are a lot of opportunities that can you explore. Furthermore, you are also sending a message to the other party that you are a reliable and responsible person.

Whenever I receive e-mails, I would open it and decide what I can do with it. If I can respond within five minutes, I would reply immediately. If it takes longer time to respond, I either put it away for later or reply back and promise the person when they can expect a full reply from me.

If I receive a miss calls on my mobile phone, I will either call back immediately if possible. Otherwise, I would schedule a later time to call. The mobile apps that I used is called Astrid, it reminds me when I need to return a call.

Returning a call or replying an e-mail will not take you too much time, but opportunity could be on the other side of the line or e-mail.

E-mail Management

Everyday I would receive close to 50 to 80 e-mails a day. Maintaining these e-mails has been a nightmare. At any one time, my Inbox can have more than a hundred e-mails.

There are times where I would open one e-mail stare it for a few minutes and close it. Moments later, I would open it again and do the same thing. No doubt is only a few minutes but all these wasted time would actually add up.

Since I got started with David Allen's GTD, my e-mails has started to become slightly more manageable. For me the best suggestion was the two minutes rule. The rule is, open the e-mail and read through it. If you can complete what is required from the e-mail done in two minutes, get it done and archive the e-mail. If it takes more than two minutes, file it and review it later.

From my own usage instead of two minutes,  I would extend the time to five minutes. The rest would follow the same principle.

If e-mail action items requires many five minutes, I would start a mini project and break down the work down to small chunks. Firstly, the work does not seem so daunting but also manageable.

What is your secret in managing e-mails?

Feeling Stress? Trying Yoga and Meditation

Lets face it, I have a full time job, family with two kids and a start-up to run. The stress is forever making me weary. During my waking hours, I spent most of my time working or managing the family. The stress can be so overwhelming that there are times where I just wanted to run away from all. I supposed this is the price of ambition.

Through the years, I have found certain ways to wind down or to switch off. Sometimes it works, while sometimes it did not. I am not an expert in stress management but what I have experienced is very similar to what has been described in an article from the Wall Street Journal. One of my main way to relax is to attend a weekly yoga lesson. In that short sixty minutes, I would experience all sorts of discomfort which includes cramp and pain. It was wonderful time to listen and watch the body. I have no time to think about other things else but to be within the moment. We have spent most of our existence on going somewhere, through yoga I learn to be being here. Once a week lesson may not sound a lot, but if you can mix your days with one or two pose into your daily routine, it will make a lot of difference.

One of my secret to mix yoga or workout into my daily routine is with an mobile application called Workout Trainer. You can find it on the Google Play. There are all sorts of workouts and programs that comes with detailed instructions. The workout caters for various intensity requirements. It even has workout that focus on certain parts of the body. For those who always complain about time constraint, there are even workout that can be as quick as two minutes. My favorite workout is the 5 minutes abs and arm workout. In 5 minutes, trying doing 100 pushups and 100 crunches. It is a good stress reliever.

I learned to meditate in 1995 through a Buddhist group in Australia. However, I never really got into it until 2012. To me, you really do not need find a quiet place  to meditate. If you are stuck in a traffic, waiting for the elevator. Just focus within yourself and observe your breathing. All you need is to feel and observe how your body breath in the air and exhale the air. Within that short moments, you should feel a lot easier. 

There you have it. This is how I unwind. There are times where none of my approach would work. When that happens, you can either built up a to do list, and go through it. The motion of crossing out accomplished items gives you a feel good moment. Do it enough, you would see that things are not as bad as it seems.

Good luck. And feel free to share your experience. 

Do You Know Your Cost of Making Money?

Everything has a cost. We read a lot about the need of making sacrifice to start a business and making money. Before you nod your head saying that you already know that. Ask yourself this question, how much are you willing to spent on making money? When will it reach a level where you think it just cost too much to make money?

The cost itself may not only be time, health but also  your social well being. Being busy making a business work, your family life, health condition may take certain amount of beating. So you must know where is your limit. If you go beyond your limit, the money that you made may not necessary be worth your while.

For example, you have an important contract to negotiate but it is also your kid's school performance. Do you try to re-schedule the negotiation and risk the deal or you miss the performance and take the deal? Both comes at a price. Whatever decision that you made, there should be no regrets on your part.

Know your limits. It actually cost you something to make money. Be sure to know how much you are willing to "spent" on making money.

Prioritization

I have a full time job and a two kids to take care. The process of balancing family life, career and the on-line business has been a challenge. The only time that I have to work on the on-line business is after ten pm, when my kids has gone to bed. This leaves me around an hour to 90 minutes which lets me work on the online business.

When you are short of time, you would quickly learn about prioritization. The first thing that I would normally do is to read the local papers or magazines about news on food or dining etiquette. I would take note or cut out whatever information which I think it could be useful for the site. Once done, I would see how I can incorporate the information onto the site. My site better-dining is all about food knowledge and dining etiquette. Therefore, information and content is the thing that I spend most of my time on. Layout and link building is secondary importance. In fact, I do not even have a stragety to built traffic to my site. In my opinion, if I have the information and content that people needs, the traffic will eventually come.

For those who are working on your own business. You have to constantly ask yourself what drives your company's growth. If you know what is that, do whatever you can to work on it. Sometimes it is too easy to stray off track because something else is a easier to do. Ask yourself this question "What I am doing now, will it bring any long term benefit to my business?" You have to be realistic with your answers.

Good luck!