Archive for February, 2009

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Family Expansion

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009

My thoughts lately have been very focused on family. The reason for this is that my lovely wife, Brina, gave birth to our third daughter this week. Our new daughter Samantha Lynn Donaldson was born on Sunday evening at 10:18pm. With our newest addition, I’m officially the only male in our family of 5. GULP.

I took the week off of work at my Houston Courier Service to spend time with my family as well as get re-adjusted to having a newborn in our home. During this week, I’ve had some time to reflect on my life (Having a new baby tends to do that). I’ve realized that what I’m experiencing right now is what I will look back on as some of my most cherished memories. Watching my daughters learn and experience new things, seeing my wife become the most amazing mother and learning the importance of being a good father are what I consider to be some of life’s greatest moments.

It’s a challenging world today and my daughters will have more pressures, more distractions and more information to deal with than when I was growing up. However, I’ve been given this unique opportunity as a father. I have the chance to become a hero to three wonderful girls by simply giving my time, my advice, my listening, my support and my love…and sometimes my wallet.

In my opinion, the true measure of a man is how well he performs as a father. And now more than ever, I will get my chance to find out what I’m made of…wish me luck!

Welcome to the world Samantha Lynn Donaldson!

Hot Shot Delivery - Newest Family Member
Hot Shot Delivery – Newest Family Member

Till Next Time,

Eric

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Making a Prioritized To-Do List

Tuesday, February 17th, 2009

Keeping a well organized to-do list is one of the most important ways that you can improve your professional life. If done right, it can be the foundation for crafting you into the Business Superman. Faster than your colleagues or competitors and able to leap over tasks in a single bound.

Here are a few tips to creating a great to-do list:

Prioritization

Your to-do list needs to be listed in order of priority. Then when you start working on the list, DO NOT move on to the next task until you have finished the one before it. You will be tempted all the time to work a bit here and there, but often that means that you have several unfinished projects running at one time. That is not good for anything, including your sanity. In fact, a study was done that showed people who tackled one item at a time on their to do list actually accomplished all items on the list faster than people who worked on many tasks at the same time.

Rework It

If you work on the next day’s to-do list before you leave for the day, you can get started right away when you arrive in the morning. In case you don’t think this is important, clock how much time you spend in the morning “gearing up” for your day. Getting coffee, chatting with the guy next to you about last night’s events and deciding what you need to get done today. I promise that it will be more than you think.

Visibility

I keep my to-do list always near me and visible. If you spend a lot of time on the computer, you might consider an online to-do list manager that you can synch with your calendar or phone. Remember the Milk, Tada List, Toodledo, or Todoist are some of the online to-do list managers. Many are FREE and worth the time to set up. You can access your to-do list from any computer and from your phone. Gone are the days of leaving the to-do list on your desk as you walk out the door to accomplish the things on it.

One of the best things about your to-do list is that is should serve as mental dumping ground. What I mean by this is that you should put a task on your list and forget it. You’ll deal with it when the time is right and in the meantime you can give all of your attention to the task at hand.

By creating and keeping a well organized and prioritized to-do lists, you will have more time to yourself and accomplish more in your professional and personal life. How can you say no to that?

Until Next Time,

Eric

Hot Shot Delivery – Houston Courier Service

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Recession-Proofing Your Business

Tuesday, February 10th, 2009

This is a challenging time for many companies. Business is slowing down and people are cutting back on their spending across multiple industries. The fear and concern of a major recession is on the minds of most people. However, it’s not all bad. Actually, you are in better shape than you think. One of the best things about running a small business is the ability to react quickly and efficiently to a financial crisis. Here are a few tricks that I have learned over the years:

Keep it Lean

There are some basics in this category – like not flying in coffee from New York for your staff (yes, I have heard of that). But seriously, there are some other things that you can attack that you might not have thought about. How about getting rid of unprofitable clients? Many businesses don’t realize how unprofitable certain customers can be. As a Houston Courier Service, I’m very aware of this problem. You will need to dig deep into the numbers to see if you can spot them and find a way to make them profitable. If not, go with the 80/20 rule on this one and trim the excess to save time and money.

Diversify

If you love what you do for a living than this one will be an easy one for you. I bet you can rattle off 5 things right now that make you different from your competitors. Can your customers rattle those same things as fast? I bet not. Review your marketing materials and talk with your sales team to make sure that you are communicating those differences as much as possible. Now is the time to stand out from the competition.

Resist Changing Prices

Raising rates will be a big temptation but remember your customers are feeling the squeeze just as much as you are. Don’t make your services one of the areas that they scale back on. Also, discounting your services too much will devalue your brand and might not be something that you can recover from. Just hold tight!

Keep In Close Contact with Customers

People do business with people that they like. Your customers need to know that you care! Don’t assume that they already know that — pick up the phone and remind them. Find out the little details in their life like their spouse’s birthday and send flowers. Not only is this fun to do but your customers will appreciate you for it.

In the end, a slower economy actually helps you find problem areas and become more efficient. So don’t let it get you down! You’ll emerge a better company on the other end!

Until Next Time,

Eric

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