Posts filed under 'She's the boss'
In the online class I’m teaching this month, the question of whether to send holiday cards and gifts to clients — and if so, when and how much — came up. If you’re self-employed, holiday cards for smaller clients and gifts for larger ones are a must. Besides, it’s a tax write-off ($25 per client, per year, last time I checked).
This New York Times article outlines many of the do’s and don’ts of giving holiday gifts to clients. I second the article’s suggestion to avoid sending your gifts at the height of the holiday season when key contacts might be on vacation until long after your carefully selected fruit basket has gone moldy. Since I’m always late getting my holiday cards and gifts out, I just send ‘em during the new year. Even better, I’ve been known to hand-deliver them to my local clients. Doing so gives me a chance to check in, and people seem to welcome the distraction (and then call me the next week or month with a project they need done).
The NYT also advised thinking outside the gift box and getting something more unique than the tried-and-true (not to mention gross) fruitcake, something that ties in with your business model if you can. For example, I’ve been known to send newspaper and magazine editors books, journals, and stationery. However, I’ve also been known to make my own gift baskets filled with toys or bath products, which have little to do with writing but seem to be a big hit.
Curiously, while client gifting in December is here to stay, the Christian Science Monitor reports that cash holiday bonuses for employees seem to be going the way of the dodo. Well, at least those luckless employees can swill on all that wine, cheese, and chocolate their vendors and freelancers send them by the truckload every holiday season. I usually just get some rumpled, coffee-stained cards in the mail.* My dog can’t even eat those.
*In all fairness, I did get invited to several client holiday parties this year, which made me feel ultra-loved. Thank you, warm and fuzzy clients.
December 13th, 2006
…says a December 8 USA Today article called “Gen Y makes a mark and their imprint is entrepreneurship.”
Check out this intro:
They’ve got the smarts and the confidence to get a job, but increasing numbers of the millennial generation — those in their mid-20s and younger — are deciding corporate America just doesn’t fit their needs.
So armed with a hefty dose of optimism, moxie and self-esteem, they are becoming entrepreneurs.
“People are realizing they don’t have to go to work in suits and ties and don’t have to talk about budgets every day,” says Ben Kaufman, 20, founder of a company that makes iPod accessories. “They can have a job they like. They can create a job for themselves.”
And behold this fascinating chart taken from an August 2006 study by the Pew Research Center, which finds that self-employed peeps are more satisfied with their jobs, excerpt of course when it comes to health and retirement benefits. (Personally, I find the job security category most interesting.)
I was also happy to see that the article doesn’t shy away from some of the harsh realities of working for oneself. For instance, Ellen Kossek, a Michigan State University professor who has spent 18 years researching workplace flexibility, offers these thoughts on twentysomethings striking out on their own in the workforce:
…”what they find out is that it’s not a way to get a work-life balance. When you have your own business, you’re working long hours, because if you don’t work, money doesn’t come in.”
I was surprised, though, to find that the entrepreneurs USA Today profiled were predominantly white guys. But better to have the article than not have it at all. And too bad trend pieces like this weren’t around 15 years ago when I was trying to explain to my parents why I quit my job to become a freelancer.
December 11th, 2006
My dad is here from New York and I have to meet him downtown shortly. So this’ll just be a quickie.
I found this short but sweet article in NAFE Magazine, put out by the National Association for Female Executives, on how exactly to pay yourself when you’re a newbie entrepreneur with a growing business. Thought you’d want to see.
Here’s a teaser:
So you’ve started your own business and now the money’s rolling — or maybe just trickling — in. Now it’s time to start drawing a salary. But how much? Should you draw out what you need to cover your living expenses? What your growing company can afford? Or how about the pay you sacrificed to go solo?
Ideally, all three — and much more — will factor into your salary decision. While you may be willing to take a hefty drop in pay to get your business rolling, paying yourself far under market does both you and your business a disservice. “It’s not sustainable,” explains Peter Hupalo, author of Thinking Like an Entrepreneur. “You may be able to get by, but for how long? And it won’t look good to potential investors or buyers down the road.”
Helpful budgeting tips follow. If you’re working solo, or thinking of taking the plunge, check it out.
[Full disclosure: I have an article in this ish too, on how to ask for a raise, though you can't get to it online.]
December 8th, 2006
I’m not an e-commerce diva, nor do I play one on TV. (Though I did interview several interesting e-tailers for my book, including the women behind Supermaggie and Diva Deals.)
In the past week, I’ve attended a couple craft shows, one at the holiday fundraiser for this fine nonprofit organization, as well as this weekend-long craftacular event. And now I’m even more impressed and in awe of anyone who can make a full-time living selling their handmade wares, online, in person, whenever and wherever.
I mean, all I do is sell words. I don’t have to buy things wholesale and spend hours assembling them and then hawking them in cyberspace or from the trunk of my car. (Though I will probably revise that statement in a couple months when my book is out.)
So if I ever wanted to become an e-tailer, I would soak up the ultra-informative suggestions that Grace Bonney of design*sponge makes on this week’s Slate BizBoxBlog, like a, er, sponge. There are about 101 suggestions in her latest column — how to track inventory, the cheapest/easiest ways to ship, how to give good customer service, and on and on and on. There’s also lots of advice on what not to do.
Even though I’m mainly a service provider, I relish hearing how this self-employed design diva makes a go of it and seeing that many sole proprietors and small business owners share the same concerns. Definitely an article worth bookmarking.
December 7th, 2006
To milk last week’s holiday with ignoble origins a tad longer, following are a few recent news items that made me stand on my desk and cheer (that is, on top of the cancellation of the O.J. media blitz):
The Wall Street Journal released its “50 Women to Watch” list for 2006. Interesting Broadsheet notes here on philanthropist extraordinaire Melinda Gates making the top slot.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer ran a kickass series this month called “The Glass Ceiling: Where a Rise to the Top Stops.” I especially liked the piece on the “Women at the Top” class offered in the University of Washington’s MBA program, which tackles such corporate-ladder issues as dealing with authority (is that a newspaper euphemism for dealing with harassment in the workplace?), balancing family with career, and facing the consequences of leaving the workforce temporarily to raise kids. (Why do we need yet another newspaper series like this? Because as Elana Centor points out on Blogher, the recent appointment of Kerrii Anderson to permanent CEO of Wendy’s brings the total number of women running Fortune 1000 companies to a whopping 2.1 percent. Uh, yay?)
And finally, USA Today has been running a six-week “Young and in Debt” series, which I’m sure most of us can relate to. Check out the live chat today — Monday, November 27 — at noon EST. (Thanks to Boston Gal’s Open Wallet for alerting me to this series.)
November 27th, 2006
Speaking of women breadwinners, check out this Miami Herald column by Cindy Krischer Goodman on how wives and husbands balance work and home life when he goes to work for her company. (Published 11/15/06)
An excerpt from the article:
More women appear to be hiring their spouses as employees. Some 33 percent of U.S. businesses are owned by women, a number that increased 14 percent in the last five years, according to the Center for Women’s Business Research. More women are taking over family businesses or building independent sales networks, too.
For some of these women, the obvious solution to staffing issues is at home: their husbands. With businesses now that support it, “There is no reason not to take advantage of good skill sets in the form of a husband,” says Nan Langowitz, director of the Center for Women’s Leadership at Babson College.
Handbag designer Kate Spade has done it. So has Airborne creator Victoria Knight-McDowell and Baby Einstein Co. founder Julie Aigner-Clark.
Hmmm, I wonder if I could get my boyfriend to work for me full time? (she says, deviously tapping her fingers together like Mr. Burns on The Simpsons)…
November 20th, 2006
Speaking of what powerful women wear their first day on the job, let’s take a brief trip down memory lane, shall we? Here’s a gem from a press conference with Katie Couric this summer.
Couric was questioned again about why she left her longtime “Today” job to take the anchor position (a rare opportunity, and nothing to do with being the first solo female network anchor, she said) and how her daughters, ages 10 and 14, received her decision (supportively).
She finally drew the line at a query about what she intended to wear on her first newscast.
“You’re kidding, right?” she replied.
“Sadly, I’m not,” said the reporter asking the question, an acknowledgment of the microscopic scrutiny given to Couric’s ascension to the ABC-CBS-NBC anchor troika.
“I’ve actually gone to Charlie Gibson’s stylist,” Couric responded wryly, referring to her ABC counterpart.
Anyone else have any gems they’d like to share, either from your own life of the lives of public figures? I’m collecting.
November 14th, 2006
Besides Dems take the house, I was tickled to come across this gem today:
It’s really silly to just be a slave to work that you can do instead of want to do.
Found it in my interview notes for an article I’m writing on self-employment. The interviewee who said this is a former math professor with degrees up the wazoo. Not long after she began teaching, she found herself dreading Mondays and living for the weekends. So to make life more interesting she started her own petcare business on the side, as an evening and weekend hobby. Still, she didn’t think she could ever give up the day job she had trained so long and hard for, despite the fact that it was bleeding her soul dry. This is what I should be doing, she’d tell herself about the unfulfilling math career. And because women are so underrepresented professionally in mathematics and the sciences, she felt it was her responsibility to tough out a gig she’d grown to resent, if for no other reason than to serve as a role model for young women contemplating what career path to follow.
Somewhere along the way the weekend hobby took on a life of its own, eating up every waking second this woman wasn’t at her day job, all the while remaining a constant source of joy. It was time to choose between shoulding and wanting, and this time to choice was clear: Kick the day job to the curb, and pour her heart into her burgeoning petcare business. And so she did. And happy she remains, with a thriving new enterprise of her own.
Career coach extraordinaire Curt Rosengren first introduced me to the debilitating concept of shoulding all over oneself, though I doubt he put as ineloquently as I just did. As a roadmap of sorts for The Anti 9-to-5 Guide, I wrote an article earlier this year on ten myths of career change we women subject ourselves to. Unfortunately, when it comes to career change, shoulding is just one of the many roadblocks we set up for ourselves. You can read about nine other ways we’re our own worst enemies here. (Free subscription may be required.)
The shoulding ourselves doesn’t begin and end with career decisions though. There’s also the crippling shoulding we creative types commit when we sit down — or avoid sitting down — to work on our arty projects. While devouring all sorts of online interviews with writer Aimee Bender this week, I came across this great conversation she and Lovely Bones author Alice Sebold had with each other, on shoulding all over one’s creativity, among other things. If you’ve ever thought to yourself, I should know the work of all the literary greats before I pick up a pen myself, or I should write literary fiction as opposed to sci-fi/fantasy because everyone knows lit fiction is [insert snooty assertion here], or I should plot out every twist and turn of my novel before I actually begin writing the dang thing, read this interview.
November 8th, 2006
Don’t those words have lovely ring to them? Here’s what Time had to say about Nancy back in September:
Nancy Pelosi, the leader of the Democrats in the House, portrays herself as a polite, grandmotherly lady. She constantly discusses her five grandchildren, makes sure her office is stocked with Ghirardelli chocolates, perpetually smiles and never swears in a business in which almost everyone else does. She even has a few cute quirks she and her staff would love to tell you about: a diet consisting mostly of chocolate and chocolate ice cream, and so much energy, she rarely sleeps. Just the other night, she will tell you, she was up watching MTV after midnight.
Don’t believe it for a second. Would your grandmother ever say, “If people are ripping your face off, you have to rip their face off” (Pelosi’s approach to handling attacks from Republicans)? How about “If you take the knife off the table, it’s not very frightening anymore” (her explanation for why she won’t let voters forget George W. Bush’s unpopular Social Security proposal from last year)?
The 66-year-old San Francisco lawmaker is an aggressive, hyperpartisan liberal pol who is the Democrats’ version of Tom DeLay, minus the ethical and legal problems of the former Republican House leader. To condition Democrats for this fall’s midterm elections, she has employed tactics straight out of DeLay’s playbook: insisting other House Democrats vote the party line on everything, avoiding compromise with Republicans at all cost and mandating that members spend much of their time raising money for colleagues in close races. And she has been effective. House Democrats have been more unified in their voting than at any other time in the past quarter-century, with members on average voting the party line 88% of the time in 2005, according to Congressional Quarterly….
Right fucking on!
November 8th, 2006
Women’s eNews ran a nice story this week on how teenage girls are trying their hand at entrepreneurship more and more, thanks to programs like the Illinois Entrepreneurship Network’s Camp CEO, a business-training program for high school students.
I especially enjoyed this statistic from the article:
More than 6 in 10 female teens who responded to an online survey earlier this year sponsored by Junior Achievement Worldwide–a nonprofit based in Colorado Springs, Colo., that educates teens on economics and business–said they want to be self-employed at some point in their lives.
And this quote:
Nancy Moran, who started an outreach committee at the National Association of Women Business Owners in McLean, Va., to inform and inspire young women about entrepreneurship, is pleased to see more young women thinking like self-starters. “Too many young people, particularly young women, think they need to go into traditional ‘female’ jobs or go into the corporate world,” she said.
All I can say is, I wish I’d gone to a “camp” like that instead of the masochistic all-girls sleepaway camp that my parents shipped me off to each summer, where spoiled, vapid wanna-be debutantes routinely kicked each other in the head for sport. Good times.
October 20th, 2006
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