My mother’s father signed up for WWII when he was 17 years old, he didn’t die in the war, but he passed away when my mother was a little girl. I was raised to put importance on this day and remembering our veterans.

Please take a couple of minutes today to remember why it is that we enjoy so many freedoms.

I can’t watch this video without crying.

Lest we forget.

A Pittance of Time by Terry Kelly

Social networking is so important for all of us self-employed people but how do you know which sites are worth investing time in?

Well, I can tell you, it really depends on your target market, but I have found certain sites to be a waste of time for me and others have been extremely beneficial.

For me, Facebook hasn’t done too much, probably because I despise the “new” Facebook and don’t want to login. The only time I use it is to update some of my clients’ profiles and add applications and stuff. For me, I signed up long and ever ago with a personal page and have never really used it for business. (Maybe that’s why it hasn’t worked, brainiac.)

MySpace I’ve never gotten into but rumor has it, it’s a waste of time for business networking. (If you have had good results, please comment and let me know about it!)

Now, Twitter. Oh Twitter, how I love thee!

Twitter is a social networking site that begs the question, “What are you doing right now?”

You might be thinking, “Well, who cares?”

Answer - You’d be surprised!

Each Twitter post or “Tweet” (hence the catchy name of this post) is like a tiny little blog post. Anyone “following” you will be able to read your Tweet.

To totally get the power of this, let’s talk about me for a minute. I’m a virtual assistant and I specialize in writing services. When I ‘Tweet’ I try to always let my followers know what it is that I do. But, see, you’re limited to 140 characters with your Tweets so it’s challenging to come up with smart little updates. In the morning, I’ll usually Tweet about what I’m doing (writing a press release, polishing up an article, working on web content, etc.) so that my followers are kind of subliminally getting a service list that’s updated for them each time I’m working on something different. For example, I might say “Drinking coffee and optimizing a press release for web submission.” That tells my followers something personal (I drink way too much coffee because every other Tweet is about my java) and that I have people who pay me to optimize their press releases to be submitted online.

When my followers need my services, if they have been stalking following me for awhile, they are going to feel like they practically know me (Tweeting is a fine balancing act between personal and business for me, but my followers know that I love to cook, eat good food, play with my kids and watch Grey’s Anatomy on top of the fact that I am really busy with writing projects so I must be good, right?).

Twitter, basically, is the ultimate relationship building tool if you ask me. I’ve hired people after following them, I’ve been hired by people who follow me - it’s one big happy Twitter Universe.

I learned about a really cool Twitter tool yesterday called Tweet Beep. It works like Google Alerts. You type in words or phrases you want to be notified of being used in people’s Tweets. I might have a Twitter Beep with my name, so I know when people are talking about me. Or, I might have one set up for ‘copywriting’ so I can be notified if someone is looking for copywriting services, or if there’s someone cool Tweeting about it so I can follow them.

To learn more about this really fabulous networking site check out the Twitter Handbook.

Phew. That’s enough about Twitter for now. But I could go on and on….

A portion of all Mann Made Time’s profits for the month of October will go towards finding a cure.

No matter what your age, girls, start checking yourselves for lumps. I’ve heard of far too many women in their 30s or younger who have been devastated by this disease. And hopefully those of you who need regular mammograms are scheduling those now.

Canadians wishing to donate directly can visit the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation.

Those south of the border may wish to visit the Susah G. Komen for the Cure website to donate.

We can’t all give to every foundation that needs to raise funds, but breast cancer is an epidemic. I think it’s good karma to give. It has touched so many people that I know. I encourage everyone reading this to do what you can to help find a cure.

Anyone who regularly reads my blog knows I’m a huge fan of the Food Network and I absolutely love cooking. Unfortunately, my days are pretty busy now with a young family and a thriving business so I’m all for shortcuts whenever I can find them.

Since I’m pretty sure that if my husband were responsible for the cooking we would all die, I make 100% of our meals. And, I still like to prepare nutritious meals for my husband and daughters so I don’t like to have to rely too much on packaged foods.

That’s why I got pretty excited about this…

I got a ‘tweet’ through Twitter on the weekend which turned me on to a totally cool new Google thing called Cookin’ With Google. You type into the search bar the stuff you have in your fridge and in return you get a bunch of recipes based on what you have on hand.

Bookmark this site if you love to cook!

There are lots of recipe sites out there that allow you to search by ingredient but for those of us who are really lazy busy, this saves the steps involved with logging into the recipe site, finding the ingredient search, searching by course, blah blah blah. It’s instant. One step.

“When there aren’t enough hours in the day…” try Cookin’ With Google! 

However, my business is taken such a large growth spurt that I’ve been struggling with this, and I’ve come to the point where that goal is not always attainable for my “pay as you go” clients. Quite simply, retainer work is pre-scheduled and pre-paid so it takes priority.

I’ve had to make some tough decisions, and I wanted to share these here hoping to inspire some fellow entrepreneurs to take a hard look at what’s important and try to get back to their basic original business goals.

First of all, I’ve steadily been building up my team of Associate VAs for about a year and a half now. I’m now blessed enough to provide only the services I want to provide while outsourcing the rest to my very competent team members. This is a win-win for everyone, because if you’re doing stuff you don’t love, there’s going to be someone who will do a better job of it. My clients - retainer or project - still deserve top quality work and in a lot of cases, that means it will be delegated. It’s a really hard habit to break - doing everything myself as it comes in - but I’m getting much better at it.

Next, I’ve unintentionally strayed away from my original business model quite a lot. Actually, my business looks nothing like it did in my first business plan. I always wanted to only work with regular retainer clients because I believe that I can provide true virtual assistance by partnering with a business owner and working so closely with them that I know their business inside and out. I still want to do this, but in the past couple of years I’ve taken on quite a few project clients and while Mann Made Time will still be taking on projects, I am going to be assigning those to my Associates unless it’s something I really want to do. This allows me to focus more time on my retainer clients.

These ongoing clients get presents. They get to make a request to have a project completed on the weekend (not that I can guarantee it will happen and it will be at a premium rate, but still!). They never hear about my other clients. They never know if I can’t get to one of their projects because I am working on other client stuff. They will never hear me vent about the amount of time another clients’ projects are taking. I want to maintain this, so rather than taking on everything that my small business banker might like me to, I’m being very careful about not taking on any more than I can handle while still maintaining the level of client care that is so important to me.

Finally, I have had to let some clients go who take up too much time with last minute requests and too much of my energy with projects that I don’t love. As of right now, if I’m getting paid to do something, it’s something I love.

All of these things allow me to continue to make my clients feel like they’re being well taken care of, and no matter how much bigger Mann Made Time gets, I don’t ever want that to change.

How are you doing with your client care? How are you? Are you bogged down? Outsource!

It feels like my business is running in absolute tip-top shape so I’ve decided to start taking some time out for myself whenever I can. That meant I had to take some time to reevaluate the services I offer, the work I outsource, and how to get everything to where I need it to be to not be working 18 hour days. I set some goals that involved spending more time playing with my ankle-biters, making my marriage a higher priority (actually, just getting it back on the priority list was a start!) and getting my butt back to the gym.

Done, done and done!

I am absolutely blessed to have the clients I do. Each and every person that I do work for on a daily basis is a joy to have in my life. My team is fabulous as well - I wouldn’t trust my treasured clients to just anyone!

If you’re self employed and are feeling like your life has gotten away from you, please slow down and evaluate the situation. Nobody is going to give you a medal for getting burnt out cause you’re doing too much.

There are so many things you can do to get closer to the ultimate life/work balance. I haven’t found the ultimate yet, but I’m on my way.

Mann Made Time is rolling out a new service in October to help the self-employed free up even more time - Telephone Services.

Yes, we are willing to (wait for it…)

Mann your phones!

This super hard to find service is now available via your Mann Made Receptionist.  Our virtual telephone services will include incoming and outgoing calls and I expect the incoming spaces are going to fill up quickly, so consider this fair warning!

Now, there. I’m officially back. Blogging for my business is going to be one of my non-negotiable tasks in my Basecamp account. Really, if I were my own client (which I am) I would have fired me for making my blog a non-priority.

That’s it for this first post after such a long break.

Baby steps.

If you have been in business for fifteen years and haven’t updated your photo, whatcha waitin’ for?

I’m one to talk - the only professional headshots I have were taken when I was pregnant and they are not at all flattering. I’ve been meaning to get new ones, but then baby came along, the business boomed and my picture hasn’t been high on my priority list.

Wow…was it really December 2006 when I got those photos taken? Holy cow, time flies.

I need a new photo, and if your professional headshot is ten years old or cropped from a wedding picture, I want to challenge you to get a new one with me.

I could go into detail about why a professional photo is a must, but I don’t think there’s much need. If you have a bad photo, you probably know it’s bad, you’re just putting off getting a good one because of cost, lack of time, or maybe you don’t think your photo is really “that” bad.  Here’s a tip to help you figure out if your picture is good or not. If you are constantly meeting with people who say they didn’t recognize you from your photo, it’s probably time to update it

As human beings, many of us make very quick judgments about people and if you have a family photo of yourself on your website (and you’re operating a professional business), you’re going to be judged…depending on your target market, I suppose. If you have a photo of yourself with your children and you operate a children’s clothing store or a day care, that’s quite acceptable. But if you’re an accountant and you have a photo on your website of yourself with your children, that’s a different story all together!

So…here’s the challenge.

If your professional headshot sucks isn’t great, just book an appointment with a photographer, or at Wal-Mart, and get a new one taken. I’m going to get in touch with my favorite photographer and try to get a new photo taken by the end of the month.

Who’s with me?