In fact, many company leaders never even look at their own websites. Their awareness is seems to be more focused on what their staff puts in front of them or what their customers tell them. What they’re missing with these feedback loops is the hundreds (and maybe thousands) of people visiting their website. A company’s website is the most accessible way that a customer, potential customer, news reporter or random person can find that company.

As a result, having an outdated website is like making a sales presentation in your underwear.

It makes you look bad. Just like if you were standing in a meeting in your underwear, most people would laugh, look away, or tell you to take a hike. However, few would hire your company, even if you told them that you were too busy selling products to put on pants that day.

The same is true with websites. Your website is what gives you credibility… most people won’t see that new wizbang brochure or catalog, but they’ll likely go to your website to find your phone number, location, and browse to see what your company is about. It’s the world’s biggest tradeshow… and you already have a booth, whether you like it or not.

• Have fun!
• Let people be people; stop expecting them to have no weaknesses
• Talk to people when I have a concern rather than hitting them upside the head or ignoring it
• Not play favorites
• Get rid of dead wood
• Not make fun of customers or co-workers
• Encourage group breaks and communication
• Work as hard as I expect them to work
• Not make people come to work sick
• Delegate, plan and execute (don’t change at last minute)
• Be respectful of others
• Be patient and be better than I currently am with rushing
• Laugh
• Work respectable hours
• Blog

What is on your “Do Differently List?”

We can’t win, so we might as well laugh! For your reading entertainment, here’s the recent “circular” conversation that my husband had with Quickbooks customer service regarding an upgrade for the 2009 version.

Very professional isn’t it?

Has anyone had a good customer service experience on instant message? I don’t think I have. It’s hard to get someone who doesn’t speak your language to understand what you’re looking for on IM!

PS By the way, if you can find out what the upgrade price is for Quickbooks 2010 for Mac, let us know

When I started this company, my husband and I researched solutions for hours and hours. I ultimately chose Freshbooks because it met the needs of Coleman Unlimited. My husband’s company, however, was using MYOB. He recently switched over to Quickbooks, hoping it had gotten better than complaints he’d read on the Internet.

The GOOD:
From an invoicing perspective, Quickbooks is very user-friendly.
I like how the program’s interface makes it really easy to see what invoices are overdue, as well as view your income in different time increments. The Transaction Center is the most useful screen when billing.

I hear the PC version is better than the Mac version, but I’ve never experienced the PC version, so I don’t know what I’m missing.

We like most of the basic features of Quickbooks 2009. It’s pretty easy on the eyes. We also like the Home page and its workflow diagram that breaks out tasks.

It’s also easy to receive payment and record deposits. And the bottom line decision-making feature: our accountant can open it and is very familiar with the program.

The BAD:
Data importing is more difficult than it should be. If your bank or credit card pays Intuit (maker of Quickbooks and Quicken) enough cash, you may have a direct connect function where the transactions just flow right into the program.

However, if your bank doesn’t line Intuit’s pockets with enough cash, you’ll experience what we did last week. We went to Bank of America to download our data, but guess what, a Quickbooks (QBO) file wasn’t available to download (at least not for free). What? Now what?

We spent about 4 hours trying to import our bank data. After much searching on the Internet and reading various angry accounts from Quickbooks customers, we discovered that Intuit apparently charges banks to allow them to provide Quickbooks (QBO) downloads. Therefore, Bank of America, wanted to charge us to get QBO downloads (and even discovering this took us through a maze of bad Bank of America customer service… but that’s another story).

Wait a minute? Didn’t I just buy this software program? Aren’t I the customer? Why should I have to pay the bank to get a download of their transactions when I can easily read it on their website? ARRRGGGHHH!!!

We finally discovered a satisfactory solution, but that still doesn’t give us back a half a day of unbillable time. (I’ll skip my treatise on why corporate greed shouldn’t infringe so much on basic customer service–but it shouldn’t!)

Other nit-picky things I wish were different in QB 2009:

• I have yet to figure out how to duplicate invoices. There’s a menu item for it, but it is always grayed out.
• The memorized invoices list is a bit wooden and unfriendly. Why can’t it just be called reoccurring invoices?
• You lose all your new data if your server connection crashes during an active session. It looks like it is auto-saving, but it’s not. Close the program often if you are working in it all day.
• The report center shows pretty charts on the preview cover flow window, but in reality they are pretty boring.
• Can’t multi-select rows in memorized invoices or importing transactions.
• Have to set up a new category for every payee and classify them as vendor, customer, employee or other. This is a bit time-consuming and seems a bit unnecessary.
• Never supported Macs as well as it should.
• It seems like Quicken has some more advanced usability features than Quickbooks.
• You can only search customers by the first word in the title field, not by your contacts. It looks like it is using Spotlight, but not really.
• Customer service has a lot to be desired (see below).

I’d give Intuit’s Quickbooks 2009 a very Microsoft average “C” rating. They improve the program only when necessary, but everyone uses it. I look forward to the day when a superior competitor comes on the scene.

Redstone said some things that were worthy to be quoted. So I paused the Tivo and took notes.

Here’s a few words of leadership wisdom from Sumner Redstone:

“What I look for in people are commitment, competence and character. Without character, commitment and competence are not relevant.”

“Get loyalty by giving loyalty, particularly if a person is in some kind of trouble or problem.”

“People who are successful and good at what they do are not arrogant.”

“Optimism is the only philosophy that’s compatible with sanity.”

I want to be trustworthy. And I thought this was a great list of what it takes for others to put their trust in you.

We are inclined to trust leaders…

• who are self-aware
• who take responsibility for their role in the relationship
• who demonstrate that they consider the best interests of others rather than just themselves
• who do what they say they will do
• who practice the values they tell us are important to them
• who listen and respond to our needs and interests

Wow… may God help me to be a person like this.

The article covers how author J.D. Roth is overcoming his fear of public speaking and also shares some time-tested tips on gaining confidence like:

• Don’t compare yourself with others
• Visualize success
• Do the right thing
• Don’t dwell on failures
• Act confidently

Action sometimes involves risk, but if you never risk, you never really live.

Read more of this post, How to Build Confidence and Destroy Fear at GetRichSlowly.org. Check out my comment while you’re there.

How do I know?

On company websites of all sizes, I find typos, outdated information, vague details, and very little about the people who work there and the products or services they sell. Sometimes its even a chore to find a phone number – hard to believe, but true!

Ironically when I make it through the red tape to appropriate person to interview for the article — usually a marketing director or CEO — then I am often sent a capabilities brochure on the company. These brochures are amazing: great photos, interesting text, and all the proof that this is indeed a professional company.

So why is it that the boss cares more about a printed piece stored in their backroom than the website which is available to entire world in one click? Because that’s what they see. They aren’t looking for information about their own company. They are looking to hand something to someone they meet. And yet, if they actually went to their own websites on a regular basis, I think they would be shocked at the less than professional image they are projecting.

So if you are part of a company, go to your website. Pretend that you are a first-time visitor. And if you can’t, ask someone else to check it out for you. Get their honest opinion. Then consider: what image do you want to project to the world?

He always looked at me and said something like: “It’s on the list.” I usually then shook my head and thought that he needed better planning skills.

This was before I left my 9-to-5 job as PR director of a national association to start my own business. Since then, I’ve been whisked into the crazy world of entrepreneurship, or what I lovingly call, “finding work to get paid.”

I made many lofty goals and business plans. I created to-do lists using my favorite service, www.rememberthemilk.com. I planned on writing a blog post every week and networking on Twitter, Linkedin, and Facebook. I would do everything to market my company, plus some. It’s what I do for a living!

Then reality hit. My blog posts went from once a week to once every other week. My tasks got postponed…again and again.

For the past month, we’ve both been slammed. I haven’t written a post in a month, and I haven’t done much proactive marketing either. I’ve just been working for clients.

So is this irony? I’ve got so much work to do that I haven’t had time to market myself, even though this is part of what I do for others. It’s like doctors who smoke and let their waistbands expand: they take care of your body all day long, so they let their body go.

So you either work and make money… or you market yourself and sacrifice some cash. Tough call.

I guess that’s why my husband’s new website is still three-fourths done, while his clients’ sites all look great. I’ll have to work a bit harder at fitting it all in this year and start “hiring” myself to promote this company.

Last night I had to call one of our banks, Bank of America, to follow up on a rebate check for my new Fujitsu ScanSnap that bounced (it’s that “crisis” thing again, I guess). It’s a great scanner, but I am a bit annoyed at having to do double to paperwork due to their third-party rebate service having insufficient funds.

After I got that piece of business settled, the bank customer service person asked me if she could tell me about a great new credit card they were offering. I sighed and waited for the spiel.

The customer service woman (whom I will refer to as Bank Lady going forward) started with, “You’re already pre-approved for $15,000. And for the next 12 months, this card has 0% financing and only 7.5% after that, which is the lowest in the industry.”

I interjected, “Does the card have any cashback bonuses?”

Bank Lady replied, “We offer cash advances.”

“No,” I said. “Cashback bonuses, you know like 1%, 2%, or 3% back on purchases.”

Bank Lady paused, confused. “It’s 0% for 12 months.”

“I know,” I said. “What about you giving me 1% or 2% back?”

Confused pause by Bank Lady.

I clarified, “I don’t keep a balance on any of my credit cards so the APR percentages don’t matter to me. What I’m looking to find out is if your card will pay me to use it. I have one that gives me 3% back on my purchases.”

Bank Lady replied, “What’s the finance rate on that card?”

I said, “I don’t know. I don’t keep balances on my cards, so the finance rate doesn’t matter! I am asking if the card gives bonuses or cashback.”

“Oh, you mean points or something like that?” Bank Lady said in a moment of breakthrough.

“YES!” I said

“No, we don’t offer any points,” Bank Lady said. “But we do have 0% for 12 months…”

I interrupted: “I’m not interested. My credit cards pay me money; I don’t pay them!”

After a few courteous thank you’s between me and Bank Lady, the call ended.

I was in shock… I don’t think this poor child of the modern era even knew that credit cards could pay you, much less that you didn’t have to keep a balance on them and search aimlessly for the lowest percentage rate.

Wow is all I can say. But the good news is that I found a new passion that I could tackle the speaking circuit with: credit common sense. I have a few things to say about mortgages too!

One other thought: shouldn’t banks be educating their customers on how to better manage their finances instead of taking advantage of their lack of financial sense?