I’m going to comment on his seven bullet points.

• Working from home saves me money. Surprising to many this is actually extremely true.  When the kitchen is just down the hall it makes sense to go there for lunch instead of running out for something quick.  There’s also the HUGE gas savings with not having to commute to an office every morning and back again at night.  My utilities did go down when I moved my office out of my house since the computer wasn’t running all the time so that could be seen as a small downfall.
• It’s difficult to budget with a variable income.  There are many jobs where this is an issue (commission based jobs, etc.) but when your income relies solely on the amount of work you complete there is a great deal of variability in it.  I noticed this the most earlier this year when I got really sick and wasn’t able to put in a normal work day for almost six weeks.  I think this is where having a second stream of income or have a good savings plan come in very handy and are extremely important.
• I control my own destiny. I think this is one of the biggest advantages of owning your own business.  The full credit for your success is YOURS while conversely the full blame for failure is yours.  But, you really do control your destiny and can make the decision to truly do what your passionate about.
• There’s no way to fake it.  If you don’t produce the work, you don’t get paid.  It’s simple.  Unfortunately in many corporate jobs you can slack off and you still get your paycheck.  So, learning that if I slack off for even a day it directly hits the pocketbook is a huge lesson to learn.
• Balance is essential. I have had more discussions on this topic recently than I can begin to tell you about.  Setting a work schedule is one of the best lessons I learned.  I start work at a certain time and I end work at a certain time and I don’t work weekends.  That doesn’t mean there aren’t time when I need to pull a late night or turn the computer on over the weekend to take care of something but, for the most part, I have learned at a 9-5 Monday - Friday work schedule makes me most productive and happy because, face it, I work for myself so I can enjoy the life I’m making for myself NOT so I can be tied to a desk for every waking moment of the day.
• The perfect is the enemy of the good. You’ll have to read the original post for more on this topic.  But, for me this really means that I don’t have to have all the answers and I don’t have to work through all the possible scenarios before embarking on a new venture.  If it looks good it’s OK to try it and work out the kinks as they come.  That’s not to say I’m going to drop a load of money on a new venture until I’m comfortable that it’s worth it but I don’t have to have every possible problem solved before I’ll take a few steps down that road.
• Social interaction takes effort.  Oh, yeah.  There is no water cooler to stand beside and get a little social interaction.  My biggest pitfall came when I made the 100% move to working at home at the same time that I moved 1,000 miles away from where I’d grown up.  I knew NO ONE and had no coworkers to help smooth the transition.   It’s not impossible.  It’s not like you you won’t have a social life.  It just takes a little more effort on your part than just showing up at work and saying “hi!” to make sure you see a human face every day.

If you have a chance look at his blog.  It’s real and has some cool posts.

There’s a Desktop VCA Software that you can download.  This allows a small screen to pop up in the corner of your monitor letting you know when a call comes in

(It’s kinda of neat because it actually rings a couple seconds before my phone rings.)  I don’t need to grab the phone because I know right away who is calling and if I’m in the middle of something and can’t take the call I don’t have to.

Then, if they leave a voicemail I get this message

So, I know who left the message and I can go in to listen to it.  I don’t usually not take phone calls if I’m at my desk but occassionally I do need to send something to voicemail.

Most often I need to check missed calls or voicemails after being out of the office.  When I come in to the office this is the first thing I look at:

Which tells me I had three calls and have one voicemail.  I’m a little neurotic about watching which calls I’ve missed so I clear them out after I’ve taken are of what needs to be taken care of so the red bubbles aren’t usually there.

Since I see that there’s one new voicemail I’ll click on that icon and get this:

Which tells me I actually have two new voicemails.  I can listen to them on my computer and delete them from here which will delete them from my voicemail system.

I LOVE this thing.  It keeps my hands free when I’m listening to voicemail so I can write down information.  It’s super easy to see what calls have come in and to listen to and delete voicemail.  Seriously, this thing ROCKS!

There’s also a webbased panel so if I’m out of town or at home I can log in to check calls.

I’m super excited about some of the new features that they say are coming:

Call Forwarding Forward your calls on demand or use Selective Call Forwarding to automatically forward calls from specific people or during a certain time frame.

Call Block and Do Not Disturb Block calls from specific people, send them directly to Voice Mail or only allow certain numbers to get through.

Real Time Call Management Decide which calls reach you and which you can ignore by using your Verizon Call Assistant desktop software. A click of your mouse lets you immediately forward incoming calls, send them to Voice Mail, ignore, block or answer your calls.

Calendar Use the new Calendar feature to schedule Call Forwarding or keep track of appointments and tasks.

Contacts Keep track of Contacts by adding them from your incoming calls and Voice Mails. You can also import numbers from other address books you use, like GMail or Outlook so all of your Contacts are in one place.

Have More Than One Phone Number? Use your Verizon Call Assistant to manage several phone numbers at once, even your Verizon Wireless phone.

Other Features You can even use Verizon Call Assistant to display a map of the location of your Contacts and Incoming Calls.

If you have Verizon telephone service check this out.  I hope you like it as much as I do.

First, a brief disclaimer: reading this isn’t going to make you an expert on financial statement. It is going to give you a basic knowledge of financial statements for your own business use.

So, there are two main financial statements: the Income Statement and the Balance Sheet. Many people think the Income Statement is the most important financial statement, that’s not exactly the case…the Balance Sheet is pretty important. In fact, the Income Statement is summarized on your Balance Sheet.

Income Statement

You may also hear the Income Statement referred to as a Profit & Loss Statement. Really they are the same thing. I know, confusing, but it’s the way it is.

The Income Statement is broken in to two parts (sometimes three…but don’t worry I’ll get to that) the income section and the expense section. Then we have what some consider the most important part: your net profit (or if you’re unfortunate loss). Your net profit is simply your income minus your expenses.

Income is all the money you bring in and expenses are everything you pay out. Clear as mud, right?

Then we have that third section I mentioned. Here’s where it can get a little confusing. Occasionally you’ll see a section called Cost of Goods Sold. This section is used by some companies to break out specific income related costs. For example: a painting contractor would have painting payroll, payroll taxes, paint, and equipment rental that would be directly related to the cost of earning his income. That would go to the Cost of Goods Sold section. In the expense section expenses that are related to the overall cost of running the business would go. For example: office rent, accounting fees, and office supplies would go in the expense section.

Balance Sheet

The Balance Sheet tends to be a little more confusing to a lot of people. Really it, isn’t. The Balance Sheet consists of three sections: assets, liabilities, and equity. A Balance Sheet must balance. To do that the Assets must equal Liabilities plus Equity. Trust me, it works.

So, what is an asset? Assets are those things that the company owns: bank accounts, accounts receivable, loans people owe your company, furniture and other property.

Liabilities are those things the company owes: loans from others, accounts payable, sales taxes owed (on your sales), and other debt.

Simply put equity is assets minus liability. Within the Equity section you’ll see two other items: Retained Earnings and Net Income. Retained earnings is the sum of all prior years net incomes. Net Income is the current year’s net income (from the Income Statement — see I told you the Income Statement was summarized on the Balance Sheet).

Now for my bookkeeper soap box. Many business owners ignore the balance sheet and assume it’s not important. Many times mistakes happen on your balance sheet that could negatively affect your business. I HIGHLY recommend watching your balance sheet and keeping each of it’s accounts checked.

So, there you have it, a very basic lesson on financial statements.

It’s hard for me to believe but August marks the 6th anniversary of Taylored Office Solutions. We’ve come a long way in six years!

Six years ago I was bumbling around trying to figure out how I could do all this on my own. Today I have client’s that rely on me for my bookkeeping expertise and ask me for advice for their own businesses. I still have a hard time sometimes accepting that I’m a success.

Six years ago I had one small client that asked me to clean up a huge mess his prior two bookkeepers made. Today I’ve helped that same client walk through some major business changes. I have the privilege of leading other virtual bookkeepers as they start their own businesses. People ask me for advice on how they can do what I do. Who would have known six years ago that this crazy girl who needed a few extra bucks would build a company that would be so successful.

Here’s to our future!

Updates to Twitter (which are called “Tweets”) are limited to 140 characters, so any messages you send take only a few seconds to write. I check in to the site regularly throughout my work day, but really only spend a total of 20 minutes there, so I don’t feel like I’m wasting time. On the contrary, these brief visits boost my mood and keep me in close touch with people I care about.

When you don’t have the distractions of the business world around you, you can drive yourself pretty crazy with work. Since there’s nothing to interrupt your concentration, you can find yourself working like a dog, and not enjoying it that much.

It’s important to take a break now and then, to look up from your work and refresh your mind. Twitter is a great way to do that! Just log in, see what your friends are up to right now, take a few seconds to write your current update, and then return to your labor with new energy!

One rewarding way I use Twitter is by using the search feature to find people I’d like to get to know better. If I meet someone on an online networking forum or newsgroup, I can follow them on Twitter and learn new things about them and their ways of working and living. It’s a rich source of tips, ideas, and encouragement and it’s constantly available.

And then, of course, it’s a terrific way to keep up with what your friends are doing. I love being able to stay in contact even though we are busy with our separate lives. Just a word or two from someone you care about can make all the difference to your outlook.

If you’d like to have just a little company as you work at home, check out Twitter! But, be sure to follow me.

Recently, my Inbox reached a tipping point, and I realized I had to do something or drown in the daily avalanche. I was repeatedly hearing the little email ding-dong and interrupting my work to see who wrote. I was faced with massive lists of mail every morning, some of which regularly distracted me from getting to work. It took hours to read, sort, file, and delete as appropriate. It was time to tame the raging bull.

My first step was to set my email to download only every 90 minutes. Later, I decided to turn off the automatic download completely, and now I just keep to my own schedule of downloading and reading it at 9am, 1pm and 5pm. So now it’s under my control, instead of me being a slave to it.

The second step has also helped a great deal, and that was to set up a separate email address for all my subscriptions and newsgroups. These then go straight to their folders when I manually download mail from that address, and I can read them at appropriate times.

As for client emails and other relevant messages that get sent to my inbox, I have individual client folders set up. When checking mail, I simply assign each message to the client folders, and then read them when I’m working on that particular customer’s tasks. I also check emails from that client at ‘off-email-hours’ – i.e., while I’m on task with them – but not if my focus needs to be on a different client. So there’s a time and place for everything.

Now, I’m so proud of my empty Inbox! Anything that comes in but doesn’t seem to fit in my categories goes in a miscellaneous folder, which I can clean out whenever I have time to spare.

If your email client has a calendar with daily reminders, you can use that feature synched with your email organization. Just set a reminder to read a message that’s important, but not time-bound.

I hope you can use some of these ideas to keep from being buried in your email, save time, and enjoy being organized. It’s a wonderful feeling!

I heard about this book quite a bit from others talking about it. A few months ago I was working with a new VA helping her get started. She was new to online networking and I thought of this immediately. Of course, I won’t recommend a book until I’ve actually read it so off I went to get this book.

I literally read this book cover to cover. It’s AMAZING! I’ve been networking online for years but still got a lot out of this book. The book is designed for newbies but it’s great for anyone.

Now, here’s my soapbox. If you are new to online networking and you want to make a good impression GET THIS BOOK! I’m serious. There are so many things you can do online that will make you look unprofessional and that could really ruin your professional image and at $14.95 you can’t afford not to buy this book.

If you’ve read it, let me know what you think. If you buy it, let me know what you think.

As business owners, employees, family members, or just as humans in this world we all have struggles that we go through. This past year has been one of those struggles for me and my family. My dad, who I’m very close to, has been sick since October, 2006 with kidney failure. Ten days ago he and my sister went into the hospital where my sister had surgery to donate one of her kidneys to my dad. The surgery was a huge success and because of my virtual business I’ve been able to be here for the surgery and to help take care of the two of them (and my 3 1/2 year old nephew) as they recover.

During the time before surgery, when they were in the hospital and post surgery appointments so far I’ve made quite a few trips to San Francisco which isn’t too bad except that it’s 50 miles each way to the hospital and back which has given me a lot of time in the car to think. A portion of the drive was the exact drive I used to take to a corporate job I had about eight years ago that I really liked. This has caused me to look back on my career path and ponder the whole work thing. A question came to mind:

Do you Live to Work or Work to Live?

Does your life revolve around your work? Is your reason for getting up each day to do your job? Or is your job the means by which you are able to live your life?

I can’t say one way of living is better or worse than the other but are YOU satisfied with your situation? If you are living to work are you happy with that? Or are you using your work to escape from a life you’re not happy with? If you are working to live is it because you hate your job or is it because your life is where your focus is?

Personally I work to live. I’ve had times where that was because I wasn’t satisfied with my current job situation but that isn’t the case now. I LOVE my job and what I do for a living. I couldn’t ask for anything better. But, my business is the means by which I am able to live my life. It allows me to be there for my family. To visit friends. To be the best person I am.

I urge you to look at your life. Are you living to work or working to live? Are you happy with your answer and your situation? If so, GREAT! If not, is there something you can do to change that situation? Can you change your career path? Can you refocus your life goals? Are there professional or personal improvements you can make to make you happy with your situation?

I’d love to hear if you Live to Work or Work to Live and how you like it.

Till later…

This book is one that I would recommend to anyone in business for themselves or in a sales position. Not only does the book have great tips and ideas…it’s also a fun read. Depending on the product and/or service you sell you might need to adjust some of the specific tips but I know I had no trouble at all immediately seeing how to adjust it to work for my situation.

Let me know if you read the book and if you enjoyed it.

Jaime doesn’t waste a lot of time with fluff, she gets right down to the matter and hand and give you real examples of good follow up. After you read it are you going to say “wow, I didn’t know that!”? No, probably not, it’s basic but basic is good. Follow up doesn’t have to be rocket science. Keep it simple and you’ll succeed.

If following up with potential leads scares you or intimidates you (it does me) then this is a great book. Jaime really puts things in place and let you see that follow up doesn’t have to be scary or pushy.