How Could Website Hosting Be Green?

"Other people may not have had high expectations for me... but I had high expectations for myself."
~ Shannon Miller, Olympic Gold Medalist, Gymnastics

With so much talk about saving energy, the idea of being green has moved into every aspect of life. We think of the web as an electronic device run by millions of computers worldwide, but people rarely consider the environmental impact this huge energy drain has on our environment. Well hosting companies are waking up and have come to realize that being green applies to the Internet too!

What is a Green Host?
A green host focuses on three aspects of energy savings:
1) Saving energy by reducing usage through modification of data center design and technologies used
2) Utilizing renewable energy sources to ensure the electricity they use was generated in an environmentally friendly manner.
3) Saving energy in the manner they run their company.


How do they reduce energy usage?

• Purchasing servers that are more power efficient.
• Installing more memory into servers to make them run more efficiently.
• Raising the room temperature of their data center so not as much cooling is required.
• Designing the layout of the data center so air flow is maximized and cooling is kept to a minimum.
  

What renewable energy sources do they utilize?

• Electricity generated from solar panels
• Electricity generated from wind power
• Creating a green roof on the data center to naturally reduce inside temperatures
• Collecting rain water for use in air conditioning systems
  

How do they run an eco-friendly company?

• Renting in an office building that uses solar or wind power to generate electricity
• Purchasing carbon credits to offset their energy consumption. These credits are used to invest in the creation of renewable energy sources and reforestation.
  
• Allow employees to telecommute
• Creating incentive programs for carpooling
• Becoming a paperless office
• Plant a tree on behalf of every customer who signs up for hosting
• Doing an office energy assessment and turning off or unplugging unused electronics.
• Renting offices that use renewable energy sources for heating/cooling and electricity
• Recycling all paper and plastic waste
  

Who are these green hosting companies?
There are dozens of them out there, but these days the most talked about include:

• Dreamhost
• Rochen
• AISO.net
• SuperGreen
• GreenGeeks

If you care about the environment, it is very easy to switch your site to a green hosting company. It's a 1-hour project that can contribute years of positive impact on the environment.

Who is ready to win?

Keys to Effective Business Prospecting

“Never mistake activity for achievement” - John Wooden, Legendary UCLA Basketball Coach

Prospecting is separate from sales. Prospecting is discarding all the unqualified leads and retaining the qualified leads that are likely to buy your product now or in the future. Selling begins after this process is complete.

Prospecting takes time. Commit to prospecting two to eight hours every week, depending on your pipeline. Lock in that time in advance and build the rest of your schedule around those regular sessions. Work smarter, not harder - focus only on qualified leads and your sales should follow.

Lead Generation:

1. First, ask every existing satisfied client or customer for ideas on where you might find new business opportunities. Satisfied customers will often give you recommendations, leads and introductions if you ask for them.

2. Develop a pool of partners who share common prospects with you, but perform different or complementary services. Cultivate those relationships to stay “top of mind” and gain the most from your partnership.

3. Obtain a list of participants from key industry seminars, symposiums, and conferences. These participants may either be good prospects for you or they may become potential partners.

Other lead sources can include: webinars, seminars, third party reports, conferences, and podcasts. Use these tools to offer industry updates in which you can work synergistically with your partners. That way you share the cost and get access to their clients and prospects. You can also buy lists from many industry sources. They are usually harder to qualify, but you may be able to get a bigger pool of prospects.

Qualifying Criteria

Key criteria in qualifying your leads are: identification of decision makers, current supplier situation, their financial situation, decision timeframe, and price issues. Research every company and key executive on your target list.

Even if they’re not yet ready to buy, cultivate all long-term qualified leads. When they're ready, they will remember that you stayed in contact and offered good solutions to their needs. You will have already gained credibility. This persistence pays off when they are ready to commit to and buy your product.

Follow Up Activities:

1. Send out key information that provides value to the prospect and demonstrates your expertise in the marketplace. Provide white papers, case studies, research reports, press releases, or invitations to trade shows. Follow up with a phone call or email to make sure they received it, and schedule a time to discuss the material.

2. Have your follow-up materials at hand and make sure you record next steps into your calendar, CRM software or contact manager.

3. Your messages and talking points should include value statements that will provoke interest or action at each level of contact you have with an organization. Be familiar with your script it so it does not sound as though you are reading it. Have responses to all the common objections posed by your potential customers. Turn them into benefits wherever possible. Take notes and record key points, so during the next call, you can recite what they said last time and show you were listening.

Work with a coach to help you plan, prepare, network and hone your skills in the area of prospecting that lead to new opportunities.

Shape Up Your Accounting System

“If winning isn’t everything, then why do they keep score?” – Vince Lombardi, Legendary Head Football Coach, Green Bay Packers

Your accounting system is the eyes and ears of your business. Accounting systems are essential for reporting profits, expenses, sales, income, and more. The trouble is, many small business owners neglect their accounting systems. If you are not regularly managing your accounting system, you may have tremendous exposure to problems you are not even aware of. A good accounting system can be your best business partner, alerting you to issues that need to be addressed and keeping you apprised of your successes.

Just like any business activity, accounting needs to be an action that you schedule in your calendar and spend time on every week. Depending on the size of your business, you may need to hire someone whose full-time job is managing the accounting for your company. You may need only a part-time bookkeeper, or you may need a full accounting staff, dividing responsibilities into payables, receivables, cost and inventory accounting and reporting.

If you run a small business, you may be able to use an accounting service. There are plenty of part-time bookkeepers out there who will visit your business on a weekly basis to keep track of your books and make sure that you are current on paying bills and depositing receivables.

If you do your own bookkeeping, make sure to invest in software that can do a lot of the work for you. QuickBooks is the best example of bookkeeping software that can provide reports such as income statements, balance sheets and general ledgers and have tremendous flexibility to track any number of bank accounts, vendors, transactions, receivables and payables.

It’s important to understand the difference between a bookkeeper and an accountant. A bookkeeper does just that. He or she manages your books, writes checks and deposits money into your bank accounts. The bookkeeper can generate reports that tell you where you stand. A good bookkeeper can analyze those reports and alert you to potential shortfalls or expenses that are out of line. Remember, your accounting system is the most important diagnostic tool you have to analyze the health of your business.

Your accountant, who should be a CPA, will file your taxes, handle any government regulatory filings and produce annual statements with analyses. Your CPA should also be a business analyst who can be straight with you about the financial health of your business. CPA’s can be expensive, which is why if you are a smaller business, you are often fine using a bookkeeper for day to day accounting and save your CPA fees for annual reporting and tax filings.

So if you are still stuffing receipts into coffee cans and scribbling notes in your check register, and the bank statements are piling up in your office, make a commitment today to get your accounting system under control. Once you make the effort to implement a good accounting system, it’s easy to keep up with it, and you will have the information you need to make good decisions about the future of your business.

Are you ready to win?

What Does Your Online Presence Say About You?

"What you are seeking is also seeking you."
~ anonymous zen master

Have you checked your web presence lately? You have one you know. Or didn’t you know? If you have an account with any of the popular social media sites, or your name has ever appeared in an article, website or offline phone directory – you have an online presence. And since your name is already out there, sites are compiling information on you for others to view.

How do you check your online presence?
It’s a good practice to do a monthly check to assess your online presence. Sites are always indexing information so they are constantly adding new information.

Google Search
The quickest way to find out where you’re mentioned online is to do a Google search for your name. If you have a common name, say Karen Smith, then be sure to put your name in quote (“Karen Smith”) plus do searches on keywords that describe you. For example, “Karen Smith” + “Accountant” + “Los Angeles”. This will help narrow the search and find information on just you.

People Directories
You should also do a search on some of the popular people engines. These are sites that crawl the web gathering information on specific individuals.

• ZoomInfo
• Pipl
• PeekYou

PeekYou adds to your search capabilities by allowing you to search by usersame as well as given name. ZoomInfo allows you to claim your personal profile so you can update it yourself.

Phone Directories
To further investigate your online presence, search for yourself in online phone directories. Here are some of the most popular:

• Switchboard
• Zabasearch
• White Pages

Don’t like what you see?
If you see information online that you find erroneous, sometimes you can have it fixed. All the directory sites have procedures for correcting listings. Usually you can find the information if you click on FAQs or Customer Support links on the site. If you see information in an article, blog or website that you feel is erroneous, you need to contact the author of the piece. They may or may not change it, but it’s always worth asking.

Are you ready to win?

Business Relationships - More Than Just a Handshake

“Make sure the team members know they are working with you, not for you.” – John Wooden, Legendary College Basketball Coach


The value of your business is a function of your relationships. Your relationships with your customers, employees and vendors determines the true worth of your business. The more customers you have, the more employees you will have, and the more vendors you will have. You have to have relationships in order to have customers. The better you are at creating affiliations, the better you will be at growing your business.

Building personal connections begins early in life. First with family, then friends, and then co-workers. We are all trained in relationships throughout our lives. The skills we develop, listening, interacting, speaking and supporting, are the very skills we need to attract clients and sell our products and services. If you are willing to hone those skills, your business and your life will be exponentially enhanced.

People who succeed at relationships are those who have a strong sense of self worth and self confidence. They are willing to suit up, show up, and put themselves out into the marketplace. They are willing to risk rejection and not take it personally. They have the ability to pick up the phone and make the calls that will result in sales.

Part of this confidence comes from a knowledge that we are all already connected. We share this planet, we share this connection called business. It’s not about intruding into someone’s space, it’s about my business helping your business. It’s about my service solving your problem. And the only way we will be able to work together to solve that problem is if we have a relationship.

Take the time to work on your listening and communication skills. Work with your business coach on how to develop better relationships with employees, customers and vendors. Good relationships are a win/win for you and your business.

Are you ready to win?

Biggest Money Mistakes Series - Home Equity vs. Credit Card Debt

"I always turn to the sports pages first, which records people's accomplishments. The front page has nothing but man's failures." - Earl Warren, Former Chief Justice of the United States.

The money mistakes series deals about attitudes, beliefs and values versus specific tips

Mistake # 7: Getting a home equity loan to pay off credit card debt is a good idea. No, it’s a terrible idea. The excuse is that you have converted a non-deductible high interest debt to a lower interest tax deductible debt. I mentioned in an earlier post in this series that paying off debt by borrowing more money is not a solution to staying out of debt. Learning how to pay off debt is the way to stay out of debt. Learning how to stay on a spending plan can keep you out of debt. Converting unsecured debt to one that puts your home at risk if you default is a bad idea.

Solution: Follow the 12 steps in Wealth On Any Income and set aside 10-15% of your income to handle emergency spending. Set aside 10% of your income to create financial freedom. Establish a spending plan based on goals that reflect your values and principals and you will have a spending plan (or budget) that will work for you.

Rennie Gabriel – Rennie@RennieGabriel.com
Author of Wealth on Any Income: 12 Steps to Freedom

Talking the Talk Part I - Getting the Appointment

"You miss 100% of the shots you never take." - Wayne Gretzky, Hall of Fame Hockey Player

We’ve written quite a bit on this blog about how to sell. At Possibilities Unlimited, we train people how to identify prospects, do research and get up to speed on social networking. We work with people to manage their time and schedule sales calls into their calendars. We do everything we possibly can to prepare people to sell.

What’s next? You still have to pick up that phone, or knock on that door, and talk to your prospect. You have to know what to say in order to get an appointment, make your presentation and close the sale. You can do all the preparation in the world, but if you don’t pick up the phone, you will not sell anything.

The first phone call is usually to introduce yourself and set another time to talk when you can present your product. We often call this the pre-approach, or the warm call. You want to create enough interest so that the prospect is willing to make time for you later. Typically they are not expecting your first call, so you want to be considerate of their time.

I think it’s good for the first few calls to have a script handy to support you in case you freeze up. You never want to read directly from the script, but have it there in case you need help. Practice with a colleague a few times before you pick up the phone. It’s very helpful to hear your own voice saying the words, so that you feel comfortable talking the talk. Actors have to rehearse before they go on stage. You should rehearse too. It takes a lot of the anxiety out of the situation.

Here are some suggestions for what to say when you want to set up an appointment with a prospect:

1. State clearly your identity. “My name is Lee Ann Farmer, and I work for Possibilities Unlimited.” Be sure to use your first and last name. People know a lot of Joe’s, Laurie’s and even Lee Ann’s.

2. State what you have in common – have you met before? Did someone refer you? Do you belong to the same professional association? Do your kids go to the same school? “Ralph White knows you from the local chamber of commerce. He asked me to give you a call.”

3. State what you have to offer. “Our company works with businesses like yours to create results in sales.”

4. Ask for the conversation. “I’d like to set up a time to talk about how your sales department is doing, and discuss how we’ve been able to increase sales at other companies like yours.”

Once you’ve got a few of these calls under your belt, you’ll become more and more relaxed and confident about selling. I always try to make every call personal, but not take it personally. Do your research, be friendly and engaging, but move on if the prospect is a dead end. Use your script, but only as a guideline. Find something unique to say to each prospect, and just keep going. Before you know it, you will have appointments booked weeks in advance, and you’ll be winning the game of sales.

In a future blog, we’ll delve into sample conversations for presenting your product or service.


Are you ready to win?

Health and Fitness - The Business Connection

"The first wealth is health" Ralph Waldo Emerson

Busy entrepreneurs tend to be very focused on the vital signs of their businesses, often neglecting their own health and the connection between personal and professional fitness. Without a clean bill of health, many entrepreneurs cannot secure the necessary insurance to back their business. Further, if employees are unfit, it becomes more expensive to provide health care coverage. Productivity decreases and absenteeism increases. All this contributes negatively to the bottom line.

The nation's workforce is becoming increasingly unhealthy. Root causes range from influences at the workplace to the home: sedentary jobs, lack of activity, too much time driving and sitting, smoking, oversized food portions, increased computer, TV and electronic game time, just to name a few. These unhealthy lifestyles raise the risk for Type-2 diabetes, high blood pressure, unhealthy cholesterol, stress, heart disease, and a myriad of other health problems.

If your employees engage in unhealthy behaviors, your costs of doing business will increase. Health care and worker's compensation premiums will increase as overall productivity declines. Other costs that employers often bear include prescription drugs, surgeries, therapies, and other medical treatments. Absenteeism adds to the hidden costs of unhealthy lifestyles. Employees take more and more time off to deal with these potentially debilitating illnesses leaving companies stretched to meet productivity targets.

How can a business owner make a difference? Lead by example. Begin by getting a full physical. Determine your current fitness level, and work with a primary care physician and fitness coach to help you develop a program to help you reach your goals. For your employees, use a health risk assessment (HRA), which is a systematic approach to collecting information from individuals that identifies risk factors. You can then provide individualized feedback and link the person with programs to help promote a healthier lifestyle to help prevent disease. Increase employees' awareness and take action. Provide educational programs, use your buying power to get discounted group memberships at a gym, or create team building opportunities with healthy group competitions for reaching certain fitness milestones per team.

For example, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) developed the Workforce Health Promotion (WHP) for its own employees, focused on these four pillars: physical activity, nutritious eating, preventive health, and making healthy choices. They’ve developed walking trails, discount fitness center membership programs for employees, and food policies which suggest healthier foods at company-sponsored meetings and events. The CDC even provides tips on program design, toolkits, policies and quick resources.

Your Consulting2Win coach can help you choose the right solution for you to be on your way to a more productive, fit workforce, improved productivity and reduced overall costs - moving your business toward physical, and fiscal, fitness.

Are you ready to win?