Say what you mean

It’s important to be clear when you’re writing copy for you website, you want your customers to understand your products or services, and terms like SEO, might not mean search engine optimisation, it could mean special engineering order (check it out if you think I’m lying!). I’ve found when talking to people whose main language is not English, you generally speak with less colloquialisms, and use a better selection of works to get your message across, and it looks like Google is expecting you to do the same.

So how does this affect our SEO results

Well, this is something that I have recently worked out while playing around with some new search engine optimisation techniques.  At Totali, we are targeting iPhone Development specifically in the New Zealand market.  What I found was if I was searching for an ‘iphone developer’ we were less likely to come up, but if I searched for ‘iphone development’ we ranked much higher.  This got even better if I searched our exact working which is ‘iphone app development’, but it turns out app and application work the same in this case (or have small bearing).  This brings me to my next point.

If your market is packed, it’s harder still!

So applying my new idea, given we already know (or make the safe assumption) that if a market place has a small amount of competition, it is very easy to target, but if you’re a web designer it’s near impossible unless you really target your market to a small geographic area, and even then it’s tricky. So taking this understanding, let’s apply it to SEO or search engine optimisation services.  See the way I think about SEO is the same as most web developers do, it’s all about the search engine, but because the market is massive, and there is certainly plenty of competition, a client searching for SEO services, or search engine optimisation is probably looking for something completely different, maybe they are really wanting website results, so some food for thought there.  For us, app and application are the same, but a potential client might not search for iphone app developer, they might search iphone developer or even iphone development, so you need to make sure you cover your market, but don’t write bad copy, your customers will still running away because you’re not perceived to be professional (go figure!).

So what is a guy to do?!

The way I see if, write what you should be already!  Write great copy, that explains in simple terms, exactly what your product (or service) is.  Google seem to be preferring simple language that explains all the jargon as well as use it.  I think using this way to writing decent copy is the way to go.  If you’re looking for copywriting, or SEO services, give us a yell over at Totali, where we love to work on search engine optimisation, and always like to try new things.

It’s been a while since I started this article, but have some more ‘ammo’ now.  The thing with free stuff is, sometimes you just won’t want it.  Free trials, free samples, free full versions, they are only helpful if you actually have a need for them.

Proprietary Software vs Open Source Software

If get a little grumpy when people tell me open source software is free, and that god’s light is shining on them. I’d argue open source software isn’t free, it takes time to develop (for someone, or a group of people), and that you still either need time of money to implement is (where time = money).  I guess the thing that bugs me even more are the number of people who expect free support for their ‘free’ software.  Unfortunately there are a number of hours in the day, and they’re limited, for those of us making a living from developing software, utilising open source software in our products (within the licenses), we unfortunately need to make a living from what we do, and unfortunately while your boss thinks open source is great, you really need to tell him that you need some professional services from a company that understands the software, where it works (and where it doesn’t).

Open Source Software that works (and doesn’t)

It’s taken me some time to finally hit this idea on the head, that is while all software isn’t created equally, there is a much larger gap with open source software, they fall into these basic categories:

Great Open Source Software Developed by a Commercial Entity/Company

There are a few really great and successful (read: long life) open source software applications, these are the ones I personally use daily for various projects, and rely upon to make my living:

• Apache (Web Server)
• Squid-cache (Proxy Server)
• mySQL (Database Engine)
• PHP (Web Scripting Language)

Open Source products that are just bloody good anyway

I’ll put Debian under this category as I use it daily for all our servers (and I know many other companies do as well). Moodle is another one, not 100% if it’s commercially funded, but rather a group of companies committing to it.  There are probably many other products so don’t flame me

Open Source because we had to/poor quality open source projects

I won’t name anything specific here, you probably know a bunch of these applications already, as do I.  These projects are generally written by junior developers, released with all good intentions, often abandoned, work on specific systems only, work only for the developer, lack documentation, or were asked by clients to open source before they decided to use it.

I’m telling you about these types of open source applications because, by far they are the ones I encounter by people telling me how great this open source program they have found is, and will change the world, but when it comes to installing it requires a complete recompile of all the server software it runs on, one small mistake in setting it up will break it beyond a usable state.  See the problem I really have with these applications is that I’m often asked to ‘fix’ them, and when I tell them it’s a bug in the software (and I can’t commit a fix to repair it for all), they get all ‘anti’ on me saying that X number of users use it, and it must be me.  Sorry guys, but I’m not telling you for my benefit, I’m telling you because telling everyone about this great software that is barely documented, needs someone like myself to spend 3 days fixing basic security holes, simple problems that a bit of forward planning would have found, or alas solved, so I didn’t need to waste my time that you think is ‘just a quick fix’ but takes me 2.8 days to isolate, 5 minutes to fix, 30 minutes to test, and 30 minutes to re-install, you want to pay me for my 1 hour 5 minutes - I think not.

This is where the problem lies for me… you’re using what I would consider substandard software (which you obviously would never pay for - am I right?), and then you expect some poor software developer (remembering we’re actually really good at our job - that’s why you’re asking us to do it right, because we all know you’ve read Sam’s PHP in 24 hours, and it didn’t help you find the problem) to fix it for you.  It takes us time to work through someone elses spaghetti code that we’re not familiar with (sorry this is just ramp up time).  I guess you just expect your ‘free’ software to still cost you nothing, even though it’s broken.

It’s not all bad (I hope)

If this seems like a bit of rant, it’s not supposed to be, I’m just pointing out what a number of software developers are experiencing (Zed Shaw pulled his article, but thanks to the Way Back Machine you can read about the life of a poor software developer crapped on by the development community profiting from his application).  Personally while it’s a rant (his words), I can understand his position (my version above is a cut down version of his own experience).  The thing is, you should know by now that there is no such thing as a free lunch, it’s in your bill somewhere, so someone else is footing the bill on the great open source application you’re using, if it’s poorly written don’t expect some poor software developer to fix it for free, their time and expertise is worth paying for!  I have a pretty simple way to work this out, see I could spend 7 years learning my lawyers jobs, then do internships for a number of years on top of that, or I can just pay his fee and get on with my life.  My lawyer is a great guy, I like paying his bills, he charges a premium, and I get a good job done, we all win, and get to enjoy a glass of wine, or a cold beer once in a while.

If you have an interesting project using open source software, and want to hire some expertise, you can contact me via my company Totali, we do great Linux and OSS solutions for our customers, and have experience with cross platform networking, we’re also pretty good at reducing your TCO using proprietary and open source software.

The new marketplace

In the world of music piracy and locked down format, Coldplay has released an open formatted (well mp3 isn’t quite open, but certainly the format of my choice), and in a reasonable 192k quality!  Now I have some truth to tell the other bands out there… I’ve bought your albums, and have a drawer full of CDs (no shit, and everything thinks I’m mad when I can get it for free), but I don’t mind paying for my entertainment, but what I do protest to is being locked into ‘burn it 5 times, play it on one iPod’ bullshit.  I mean if I wanted to support a proprietary format, I would just listen to the radio where I have no control over the playlist, and have to listen to the adverts supporting the artists.  Other bands, take the hint - some people will never pay, others will, just as long as they can get their fix - their way!

A drawer full of CDs

So about my drawer, the reason they are there is because I imported them into iTunes rather than purchasing them from the iTunes store, because:

1. It’s cheaper to get the CD
2. It’s in the format I like (mp3 192k)
3. I can copy and move my files between computers
4. I have some nice album art!

Eco-music

So why buy CDs?  Well, it really has to be asked.  The reason I don’t throw them away varies, sometimes they are nice limited editions with extras, or a really funky case (hey marketing interests me).  But the other reason I don’t throw them is because I’d just be adding to the landfill, which I don’t like to do - probably a topic for another post (most things come with too much packaging).    So here is what to do:

1. Let me pay online (no petrol)
2. Let me download in the format I like (no plastic)
3. Remember that I did actually for the music and let me get at it any time (membership possibilities/promo = good for you)
4. Let me have some nice high quality artwork for my album art, or 1680×1050 resolution monitor - or higher!
5. Feel good about saving then environment (plus you probably make more from a sale since a download is basically free to all involved)

Play more concerts

Live entertainment has really died (I think), I’d personally love to go to more concerts - given that I live in little New Zealand, I can always travel to Sydney or Auckland for a good night out.

I think that’s about all I have to say on the matter for now, having a good chillout listening to Coldplay - LeftRightLeftRightLeft from www.coldplay.com

IT has a strong tendency to force you to work alone for hours on end, trying to work out a solution to the most annoying problems, but if you’re have someone working with you the time seems to go faster, and they can check your work and offer ideas which you may not have thought of yourself.  I know I’ve spent hours in the evening working out complex problems only to talk to someone about it the next day and get it solved almost right away!

Why working in a team is a good idea

Most small business owners thing working by themselves is a good idea - it sounds logical after all.  You only need to answer to yourself, and only you can be to blame should something go wrong, you’re also directly responsible for results, but there is one problem with this, that is you can’t do everything.  Everyone has things they are good at, and things they need help with, and that’s why working as a team is a good idea.

Working as a team doesn’t mean you’re admitting defeat, in fact it’s the complete opposite, it means you’ve identified where you’re strengths lie, and where you need help to deliver a better solution, faster and more cost effectively.

An example

People tend to find examples easier to follow, so I’ll use one that I’ve used many times before…

I’m a smart person, and generally that means if I’m stubborn enough to want something, there is no way on gods-green-earth that anyone will stop me from achieving it.  So knowing that if I focus my attention on something means if I wanted to learn how to be a lawyer, I’d train for 5-7 years and get really good at the job, but the problem is, I don’t have that long to learn something which I don’t really care for, or even need to know, when I can ask my lawyer a question, he pops an invoice in the post, and I pay it.  It’s certainly cheaper than 5-7 years of my life, and to add a twist, it’s probably something my lawyer enjoys doing (and getting paid for something you doing is certainly nice).

So we can’t all be good at everything, and there are things we like to do, and things we do.  There are also things which don’t make sense for us to do, and that’s when you need to build a team of people who can get everything done that needs to be completed.  I feel another example coming on…

My business team presently consists of:

• Me
• Accountant
• Lawyer

A great team

Everyone has different experiences, and working as a team brings that all together under one place, and what we all hold collectively in experience and knowledge, and it’s that collective expertise that helps build your business team and get bigger projects, and deliver some really world class solutions to your clients, one person doesn’t matter, it’s the team of people who start to make up your business, all delivering what you would expect of yourself.  Working as a team checks the boxes of being human.  We all like company of other humans, and like to have a good laugh, and share our life stories.

European Styling

I discovered after purchasing my first new car last year in January that the Suzuki SX4 was designed by Fiat. Don’t believe me? It’s called a Fiat Sedici and comes in a range of specifications which Suzuki don’t do themselves.

So what’s it like?

I can tell you I test drove a Mazda2 (2008) and while I’ll probably get flamed for comparing a mini to a crossover, they were in the same price range as what I was looking at, the SX4 being a little more expensive, but for what you got ‘extra’ it was certainly worth every cent!

It holds well to the road, and has plenty of grunt when you need to give it a hurry up. I wanted a 2.0 litre without the 4wd option (I don’t go off road, nor intended to in this car).

The SX4 is full of little surprises, so I’ll go through them as I think of them. The first feature I never thought I would use, because normally it’s crap, is cruise control. Finally one car manufacturer got it right, it actually works, and doesn’t pulse off and on the damned gas making me or any passengers feel like we’re in need of a sick bag! There is a good reason for this though, the accelerator is drive-by-wire, so they’ve had to iron out any jerky servo-type fluctuations otherwise you’d feel like you were a passenger in a slot car. Because I drive so much I opted for an auto (now everyone who drives all the time reckons I’m mad having an auto, but I drive around cities most often, and stopping and starting etc… so auto it is), I digress… So the auto transmission is bloody good for a 2 litre car, it’s smooth as you would hope for in a modern auto, and doesn’t drop down and up all the darned time, it also lets you select any gear right down to 1, but has a speed limiter as to not stuff your auto box, which means you have full control, all the time. There is one annoying thing though, every now-and-again you bump it into 3, rather than D when in a hurry and it takes a few moments to notice of the quiet cabin with air conditioning on. I guess that brings us to to the aircon… I have the LTD model which has climate air, what a godsend, pick a temperature, and put it on auto, couldn’t be simpler, and it goes cold fast, try sub 30 seconds on a bloody hot day, but I do recommend blowing the hot air out over that time too ;).

SX4 Features Galore

I’ve barely touched the surface of features, one that I really love, and would miss completely (and do when I get new rentals when I’m traveling), is the keyless system! One push unlocks the drivers door, two the rest of the car, one to lock all doors, and no key! They keyless ignition is a great feature, and it bloody works, you operate it just like a normal keyed ignition, but you don’t need the key! It won’t start if they key isn’t in the car, and beeps if you start moving and the key is out of the car. It lets you know if you get out of the car with it running (I’ve done this only once!), and won’t ever let you lock your keys in the car (even if you have the spare in there), which means you won’t look like a twit calling the AA for a lockout. There is a key in the fob should the battery run dead, but I assure you you’ll miss the battery right away! There are buttons on the door, but a complete waste of time, it’s the only part of the keyless system I barely use, except the boot (trunk for those from the northern hemisphere), and it takes longer to respond, so I’d be fine if they took them all away except the boot.

There are two cupholders in the front in the middle, and one in each of the doors (but they only fit Lipton Iced Tea - now I never knew what would fit in there until my trip to Australia and I got hooked on the refreshing beverage). There is a ‘random’ hook on the back of the passengers seat, supposed for shopping bags(?!), but according to Dad only good for playing with and smacking your knee on! Side note: Dad is 6 foot something, and can actually sit in the back with no trouble, there is ample legroom for a ’small’ car, and heaps of headroom to boot!

The only thing the Mazda2 had that the SX4 was missing was iPod integration (hello?!), but that was an easy fix, it’s a Clarion head unit, and took their iPod adaptor. It has some limitations, none of which limit the listening of music which is great! Oh yeah, you can control the stereo from the leather bound steering wheel (another luxury for a ’small car’).

The seats are comfortable enough, I’ve had worse, I’ve had better (probably in more expensive cars), so nothing to complain about either way.

So what’s the catch?

Well I’d have to say nothing, I’d certainly buy another, and certainly recommend looking at it if you’re in the market for a new car. There is one gotcha though, if you have luggage, find a different vehicle, maybe the Grand Vitara which was equally good, but bigger!

The price was spot on, I think around 27,100 plus extra (I got paint protection because it saves time washing the car). The only other ‘extra’ was the Clarion iPod converter which comes up as a CD player, which was ~USD100 which I reckon Suzuki should get something sorted there anyway. It’s a bargain I tell you now, I’m yet to find another new car in the same price bracket with as nicer drive, well laid out, well specified vehicle in New Zealand!

Where do I get one?

I got mine from Sydmo in Tauranga, they’re really friendly and their sales guys certainly weren’t pushy, and happy to help (I must add it’s really nice when you’re 22 and buying a new car to be taken seriously, and these guys certainly did, I took it for a spin, said “Hi” to my grandfather, and come back, said “I’ll have one”). I just wish they sold all the cars in Tauranga, they were bloody good (except the flowers I got, a bottle of scotch would have been the go, but Mum liked them!).

What Industry are you in?

I’ve been keeping my eyes and ears open trying to work out what to make of all the media rain fall! It’s bloody hard work listening to the same thing everyday, and talking to other business owners about how they are doing themselves in the current clime. I’ll probably open myself up for a jolly-good-flaming, but oh well, I am entitled to my own opinion after all!

I can tell you it’s hard talking to a mix of people about how the current climate is affecting them financially when things are very apparently going very well for us. Some are faring well, and others not so well. From the people I’ve talked to there are a range of answers, but they largely fall into the following generalizations:

1. Business has slowed
2. The media are full of shit, and they’re blowing this all out of proportion
3. Business is the same

Easy Money?!

To be honest, from the outside looking in, the money is too easy. It’s easier to grab a credit card than it is to get a mortgage, plus if you can prove your current credit arrangements aren’t killing you already you can easily borrow more (or you can tell stories about your current credit arrangements), and if you’re a bigger risk customer, you just pay more interest adding more fuel to the fire. This is part of the reason things are bad as they are, the money is just too bloody easy to obtain.

One thing that has become quite apparent is at present the world presently runs on credit to a large extreme, and all the media hoopla hasn’t been helpful in bring it to the worlds attention… for example… you could previously get 12 months interest free consumer debt in most places (after 12 months interest kicks in - can you say 20%? :P), but now it’s more common to get 36 months interest free (3 years anyone?), or worse still 48 months (4 years?, what a joke!). So while I hope the criteria are tougher, I doubt it because the retailers are hurting and the only way to keep their pockets full is to extend credit on easier terms to keep the registers full, or more fluidly full (that is many payments over X months so you know what’s coming in more accurately).

Just bad at business

One of the things that has hit the news are the number of businesses failing, or closing up shop. From my observation there are 2 kinds of businesses, those that can only do well in an ‘easy’ market (i.e. where we’ve come from), and those that can stand any climate. The ones who can only do well in a busy and growing market have already shut up shop because they only knew how to run a business when things were easy, credit, customers, and people were spending like there was no tomorrow. The businesses which are still standing, are either close to closing (it’s just a matter of time), or they will keep operating as normal, while in a reduced state, that is things are a bit harder, but the basics of the business are sound enough to ride out the rough waters ahead for the next year or so, it’s these business that are waiting for the next growth cycle, and you’ll read about in the media saying how good the market place is (once they’ve realized they’re inflicted enough trouble on themselves - anyone read the articles of late saying how the print media are struggling to sell papers). These businesses which survive will be in a better position to exploit the growth, and will have the necessary skills to keep expanding at a massive rate because all the required attributes in the market place will exists (easier access to credit or saved capital ready to spend), as well as a reliable trading history in a tough economic climate.

Food for thought

2008 has surely been a sobering year. We’ve expanded very considerably (I’m not saying this to blow my own trumpet), and it’s been bloody scary knowing that others are having a hard time. I’m excited to see what 2009 brings and expect that things will be a little slower than usual - it will be nice to catch my breath, but on the other hand, if it all rockets ahead, I’ll be ready, and the team I work with will be prepared for whatever lies ahead.

Bring on 2009!!

Cash Only

There were many signs at stores saying the minimum is a $AUD20 transaction (this was the norm, but 10-15AUD was common), or 2% of any amount (ouch!). When we consider in good old Aotearoa we take it for granted EFTPOS works everytime, and takes a few seconds to process our transactions and we’re done. I joking told many vendors that I have a wallet full for receipts in NZ rather than a wallet full of cash.

Doing Business the Australian Way

I did take cash only to save on bank fees (which in NZ are expensive if you don’t have large deposits, or a Visa card) and I’m glad I did, as I paid everything with cash, but did run out when I went to Taronga Zoo - whoops!

I do hate cash, but when in Rome…

What is Subversion (SVN)?

Subversion is a versioning system designed with groups of developers in mind. CVS (Concurrent Versioning System) was a very popular system in the past, but SVN has really taken off with a huge following in the past few years. I’m most certainly no SVN expert so my view of SVN will likely be helpful for anyone considering exploring it’s use.

Why would I use SVN?

Frankly you’d be mad not to! SVN has a number of benefits for project management:

1. Developers don’t need to be in the same office
2. Team development time is reduced
3. Built-in conflict management allowing fast resolution of conflicts (these happen when two people have edited the same file)
4. Works over a number of protocols including SSH
5. Ties in with tracking software such as Trac
6. Revisions, if you stuff up, you can always revert! It like simple backup

Our experience with SVN

As I mentioned I’m certainly no expert, so my view is largely from my own experiences. I’ve used subversion on a collaborative project in the past, and haven’t look at it until a few weeks back when I knew I would need two people working on a project at the same time.

Now there are a number of methods for teams to work on a project, the most common way is team programming where two developers share a computer (or have their own and one codes while the other tests etc) both reading and contributing to the code picking up on mistakes. Effectively you get a super programmer, with some speed increase, but certainly not double the work output. I would rate this method as a poor way to collaborate, but is a great way to train new developers in your methods.

SVN to the rescue!

What SVN lets you do is allow one or more developers (usually 2+) work on a project at the same time, at their own workstation developing separate parts at the same time. Effectively you get two persons worth of work, and faster development time (now, this means you’re still taking the same time as it normally would, but the timeline is shorter because you have 2 people hours per each actual hour).

Where will SVN run?

SVN will on most unixes. At present because we are working in the same physical location we have the SVN on a master desktop, and run the other workstations (and our ‘working’ copy) on each machine. As mentioned SVN will run over SSH, so in the no so distant future we are looking to setup a repository for our own use on one of our hosted servers, this will mean we can assign any developer access to our SVN for their project, and they can work from anywhere.

Office Politics

Being a Gen-Yer I don’t fit in the usual mold where you have to have face time in the office to be seen to be working (plus I know how untrue that can be in many cases!). SVN opens the doors to your virtual office allowing people to work wherever is most appropriate for them. SVN allows you to ‘check up’ on productivity as well with something like Trac or Versions App (currently beta, way cool!).

Setting up SVN

I’m not going to take credit for this one:

4 minute SVN

This guy is an absolute legend, and I can tell you all going well it will take less than 4 minutes to setup!

This guide will work on any OS X Leopard workstation or server as SVN is present in the backend. You may need to start up the svnserver manually after a reboot though. It also apt-get’s quite easily on Debian, but getting around SSH+SVN will take a couple of goes (hint: keep your username and passwords the same to make life easier!)

Life as a Developer

Go on, make your development life easy! SVN will save you a lot of time, will help with bug tracking, project management and your development cycle, plus if you stuff something up really good, you can always revert! As we play with SVN more and discover a few trick or hints I’ll be sure to post them as SVN really does make a developers life so much easier!

If you would like your own SVN server setup we can do so for you remotely, just contact us a Totali.

I’ve been developing an iPhone Web Application which of course doesn’t render exactly the same under Firefox as it does under Safari/Mobile Safari, so it makes it really hard to debug when you’re trying to get the AJAX requests spot on. So out of frustration I decided to Google it and found the following solution (I can’t recall where exactly I found it, but it was somewhere along the lines of an old cached page, so I’m posting it here not to claim ownership, but hopefully make it really easy for everyone else to find!

View Generated Source (AppleScript)

global jsCode
global htmlSource
set jsCode to "document.documentElement.outerHTML"
tell application "Safari"
	set htmlSource to (do JavaScript jsCode in front document)
end tell
tell application "TextEdit"
	activate
	make new document
	set text of front document to htmlSource
end tell

This will run pretty quickly, and I compiled mine as an application (From the AppleScript editor, it’s under File > Save As, then an option in format to save as), which takes a few moments to launch the first run, then you’re away racing!

I do use TextMate but couldn’t work out how to get it to use that, but that’s down to my lack of AppleScript knowledge. If you do know, please post a comment and I’ll edit this post with that version as well!

Enjoy!

1. Not enough money to start with (starting a business isn’t cheap)
2. Poor systems

Success or Failure

There are really two kinds of business, those who are successful, and those that aren’t in business any more. I can tell you the first year or so is really tough! Working mad hours, working like a mad man, and missing out on social time, and even having 5 minutes to yourself! I’ve just reached that plateau now where I’m able to take the weekend off, and not have to worry too much about work, and I can tell you, it make the last two years worth all the effort!

One of the most important things I setup when I started my business was simple systems to get things done. I was a shift manager at two McDonald’s Restaurants, where I learnt how to manage people within my first 6 months of becoming a manager, took on stock ordering, and stock management. By the time I left McDonald’s just under 2 years of being a manager (you’ll have to forgive me I’m a Gen Yer and it’s not in our nature to stick around too long [there is a bit more to the story (not in a bad way) but that's for another day]) I had completed two McDonald’s Management Training Courses, was capable of managing 20+ people on a shift, ordering stock twice a week, and managing stock levels, as well as stock counting. I was also learning the basics of scheduling staff. Funnily enough managing 20+ people during a shift was relatively easy thinking about it now. I used to have awesome staff who could give awesome service very consistently. (Sorry I’ve gone off track a bit, but it helps to know where I’m coming from).

So building systems in small business seems like a stupid thing to do for most people and I know why. See when you’re doing everything yourself (sound familiar?) you just get on doing it, and you tweak your process as you go along, then you forget what you did when you re-visit a particular task again because it was last month you did it, so you end up re-learning how to complete it most efficiently (AGAIN!). See, you manage to work out a lot of fast ways of doing things, over and over again, but never seem to feel like you’re doing it efficiently each time. So by coming up with a system of doing a particular job you can refer to it (even if it’s not written down - I’ll get to that shortly), you save time because you’ve worked out the best way to do it, every time, and without fail. Back the the McDonald’s thing… Making a hamburger is easy right, and there are 1000’s of ways to do it, but McDonald’s found the fastest way to making a burger every time, and they created a system to do it. McDonald’s is all about systems, which is really just a set of instructions for completing a set task. Everything mundane, or easy to stuff up can be systemized. A system isn’t supposed to make something impersonal, it’s supposed to make a task as efficient as possible. An example is probably necessary.

Processing the Mail

1. Check the mailbox (or postbox)
2. Open (and sort) all mail, discarding envelope

Pass it on

So you have your own little systems which are working well for your business, and things are really starting to pick up now! You get your first employee, or someone who does work for you on a contract basis. This means you’ll need to teach them some of your systems (probably not the accounting ones :P) If you have them documented, that’s great, but more likely than not you don’t at this stage. Teaching (and enforcing - this is important, and I’ll get there shortly) you systems to someone else is easy, because you’ve got them in place for yourself, it’s easy to teach someone else your systems for doing a set task. It’s important to make sure (by means of follow-up), that your staff are following your systems and not inventing their own ‘better way’. (Side note: employees think they’re smarter than you, and that your systems are slow ways to do things - of course you know better, because you’re tried it about 100 different ways, right?). So now they’re doing things your way, or using your system, things should be very smooth, and more profitable of course.

Successful Systems

So now you’ve got your first person, and business is booming… Amazing how easy a couple of systems make life easier, and with less stress. Your systems are important for your business, and they simplify task, and really add value to your business. I guarantee if you ask any small business owner who looks successful, or doing really well, they’ll tell you they have systems in place, and I would put money on it, they wouldn’t run their business any other way.

Now there are a couple of important notes… your systems should be reviewed, and your employees do like to try… but you need to see if their method is really smarter, or if they’re just taking shortcuts (I hear you laughing now, or screaming!). As your business changes, you’ll add, and delete parts of your whole systems, this is important, as your business will change, and will be a different beast than it was when you started, you need to keep it fresh. I have a simple rule, if things are stale, and you can’t get the fresh again quickly (say a few months), it’s probably time to get out (you need an exit plan - probably another post), because things will turn sour really fast (I’ve seen it before, and there is no shame getting out while the getting is good, and hopefully you’ve planned for that day too - again another post entry!).

I think that’s about all. Dinner time is up… another system… chew, swallow