I've stayed in many a hotel room while traveling on business, and I'm here to witness to the growing trend of "guest gouging" -- charging you for every little thing in order to make a few extra dollars. I mean, is it really necessary to charge $3.95 per day for high-speed internet access? Can that $3.95 truly have that much effect on your bottom …
The Green Office: Duplex Printing
This weekend I purchased a duplex laser printer for my office (HP LaserJet 2015dn). All I can say is, "Wow! Why didn't I do this sooner?" How many times have you printed an article from the internet, one side of the page printed, one side of the page blank? Or printed online receipts? Or printed handouts? Or printed marketing text you were working …
The Green Office: Lightbulbs Create Cash
According to Seth Godin, January is blogger's month to talk about compact fluorescent light bulbs (also called CF bulbs). Several months ago, after seeing Al Gore's movie, "An Inconvenient Truth," my husband and I decided to do something good for the planet...and our pocketbooks. We changed all the lightbulbs in our house to CF bulbs. (We also …
The Continuing Self-Employment Boom
From the National Dialogue on Entrepreneurship: New Census Bureau figures confirm what many experts have long suspected. The US is in the midst of a major boom in self-employment. 2004 data show that 19.5 million Americans are self-employed, and their numbers are growing. Between 2003 and 2004, the number of self-employed grew by 1 million (about …
Book Review: Get Clients Now
If you've been in the coaching and consulting business any length of time, you've probably read Get Clients Now by C.J. Hayden. Now you have a good excuse to go buy another copy! C.J. has updated the book and the new version has over 100 tactics, tools, and foolproof recipes customizable for any professional service business. Well worth it! If …
What Is “Cream of Tartar??”
I was in the grocery store the other day, standing near the customer service counter. A woman in her late 30s came up to the counter and asked, "Where can I find Cream of Tartar? My son needs it for a science project." The customer service person (who was in her early 20s) looked lost. She didn't know what Cream of Tartar was either. I piped up …