This is quite possibly the perfect question. In business there are so many things to consider; niche marketing, demographics, industry needs, etc. But, what would you do if you knew you wouldn’t fail? You couldn’t fail? The sky’s the limit, right? You could take a chance on that photography career and travel the world in search of exotic locations, learn to fly and open up your own skydiving business, move to the Bahamas and teach guitar on the beach.

How can you most achieve success? Doing what you have a passion for. If you are truly passionate about your chosen career you will not fail. You will be happy to go into work every day, you will be anxious to keep up with industry standards, your passion will come through in your work.

People are drawn to other people who have passion for their work. Whatever your passion is you should do it. So I end this blog post with the same question I started it with; what would you do if you knew you wouldn’t fail? Comment below. I love to be inspired by your responses.

It took me a while to jump on the Twitter band wagon, but I’m glad I did. I was resistant because I thought it was a glamorized form of stalking. And initially, I did just that. I opened a personal Twitter account and followed celebrities. Before too long I was up to date on all the trends, I knew who was dating whom, what Hugh Jackman had for lunch, and who was where.

Then it hit me! Perhaps my colleagues, clients, and potential clients would like to know the same thing about me and my business.

Okay, so I don’t tweet about where I am, what I am eating, and whom I’m dating, but I do tweet on popular trends in my industry, quotes that I find inspirational, and successes I have that I think others would benefit from. I also use it as a platform to get the word out about new products, industry standards, and chatting up my fellow virtual assistants.

Click on the birdie to following me on Twitter!

Think of your industry; what are some things you could Tweet about? Think of your clients; what do you want them to know? Think of industry standards; do you know something others could benefit from? Get it out there. Share your knowledge. Build your brand.

 STATUS UPDATE – Janet Doe: OMG, I totally just LOLd at my dog!

We all have them … our core group of friends whose statuses we just HAVE to know the millisecond they post on Facebook. I mean, we simply must know that Jane had a bagel for breakfast and that she has a crush on her pool boy, that Little Janice made Jake (the high school quarterback back in the day) a grandpa, and hold the phone, Carmen’s son Brody had his first kiss and he’s two. I mean, how can we carry on with our day if we miss these vital pieces of information?

Facebook is known as the great equalizer. We reconnect with friends from grade school, share our triumphs, downfalls, and opinions, become fans of TV shows, rock bands, and even do business. But with all of that, aren’t there some people you do want updates on? Perhaps a child who has just gone off to college, a best friend who lives far away, or that the coffee house you frequent might be running a special on your favorite coffee. With today’s technology we want things accurate and right now. If we could get them before they actually happened, even better. So with this in mind, I set out to find out how to subscribe to a select group of friends’ status updates via SMS. It used to be uber easy, but Facebook has upgraded their interface (which actually happened a while ago) and subscribing to a status via SMS isn’t as easy as it used to be. I searched high and low and couldn’t find what I was looking for. All of the articles I kept finding said to follow their instructions, but their instructions weren’t correct anymore. I knew there had to be an answer … and I was right!

Want to know what I found out? Well here you go:

• Login to Facebook
• Click on the “Account” tab in the upper right corner
• Click on “Account Settings”
• Click on the “Mobile” tab and follow the instructions for setting up your mobile phone to work with Facebook
• Make sure “Facebook Text Messages” are on
• Type in the names of your friends whose statuses you would like to have texted to you
• Select the hours you want to receive text messages (I selected 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. because I don’t want to be getting any 3:00 a.m. drunk status updates, LOL)
• Fill in the rest of the data (how many texts to send, which phone to send to, etc.) and click on “Save Changes”

How do YOU deal with stress?

We all experience stress. Whether it is getting up a little late, working longer than expected, missing deadlines, or having too much to do. Stress has become a part of our everyday lives. Why is it that we are so accepting of stress? I know I deal with my stress as though it is an acceptable part of my daily life. Today, I vow to change that.

Some of the things I notice when I am stressed: I tense up, feel an ache in my shoulders, I can’t focus, and I clench my jaw. When, I take a deep breath I feel better. My kids say that I “huff and puff.” This is not a new concept. Controlled breathing has been used for centuries in dealing with pain, stress, anxiety, even childbirth. This begins my quest for finding good ways to breathe to reduce stress.

I scoured the internet looking for breathing techniques to reduce stress. It was overwhelming. Everybody has an opinion on how to breathe to reduce stress. Here is what I found the most helpful. Did you know that the average person breathes 20,000 times per day? Twenty thousand times! One of the most informative articles I found during my quest is this eHow article. It details why you should try deep breathing, the benefits, and some breathing techniques.

Since I have become an obsessed iPad 2 owner I even found a Tactical Breathing Trainer app. Tactical breathing can be used to gain control over Psychological and physiological responses to stress. Developed by the Army, it is used to dramatically benefit soldiers while in stressful combat situations. If it works for soldiers it can certainly work for me in my daily life, right?

The bottom line is this; when you’re feeling stressed, take a little break and just breathe. A deep, calming, cleansing breath will work wonders, allow you to calm down, and regain focus.

What are your warning signs that you are stressed? How do you deal with it? Please share your suggestions here.

Make 2011 The Year You Conquer Your

Tax Nightmare

Boxes of receipts that need to be organized, uncategorized expenses, overwhelming tax forms … sound familiar? For some this is an all too common series of events. The procrastination of bookkeeping last year has become your nightmare this year. What to do? File an extension (which, at this point, undoubtedly the answer YES), stay up nights getting things organized, or forget about it and hope you don’t get caught? Well, we can all agree that the last statement is not an option. So where do you turn? My answer is simple … QuickBooks Online!

QuickBooks Online gives you online access to your books, anywhere, anytime. It allows you to have a remote bookkeeper, give instant access to your accountant, and manage your books in a secure location 24/7. You never have to buy upgrades to the software because what you use is their software online. They continue to make improvements to their product and you reap the benefits. They even have online tools to answer your basic bookkeeping questions.

QuickBooks Online makes it easy to manage your books and make critical decisions on the direction of your business with at-a-glance reporting. You can easily run a report to see what areas of your business are making money, which areas need improvement, and things you can eliminate from your budget to make your income goals. You can even link your bank accounts directly to QuickBooks Online and keep up-to-date with real-time entries. Take your time to go through the business interview and make the chart of accounts tailored to your business. You are in control of whether or not tax time next year is a dream or a nightmare. Don’t put it off because 2012 will be here before we know it!

Are you ready to turn your tax nightmare into a dream? Have concerns with keeping your books online or other alternatives not expressed here? Post your comments. I would love to hear from you.

It was just an ordinary day. I was working on client projects and writing a blog post. My post was detailed and I wanted to get the facts just right. I was doing research saving my draft as I went. Since I was writing between projects I had it open in the background and would work on it as time warranted.

I was getting tired and knew I had to soon call it a day. I had been working since 7:30 a.m. and it was nearing 10:00 p.m. I was doing my final proof before posting the blog and I noticed a formatting error. You know, the kind of error where for some unknown reason the font changes mid-post to a smaller font or even different font altogether? I kept trying to fix the issue within the program and couldn’t fix it. I highlighted the entire article to cut and paste it into Word, re-format it, and then put it back into my blog program. That’s when it happened. With the entire blog post highlighted (did I mention I was tired?) I hit the spacebar, why I did this I have no idea. My entire post was GONE! For a moment I just sat there … I put my head in my hands and was speechless. As soon as my brain engaged I yelled “NO!” Chaos ensued. The dogs woke up and came running into my office barking, I kept mumbling “no, no, no,” and Melanie, my daughter, said “What happened Mom?” I could feel the panic set in. I burst into tears (tired, remember?) and relayed what happened. She replied “Have you tried Ctrl + Z?” I’m thinking, Ctrl + Z? I immediately hit Ctrl + Z and like magic my blog post was back! I could breathe again. With this crisis averted I immediately went into business mode and knew this experience would be a blog post. If I hadn’t heard of Ctrl + Z, I was fairly certain a few of you were unaware too.

Ctrl + Z is the “undo” button of the computer. It works in many computer programs. You hold down the control key on your computer keyboard at the same time pressing the letter Z. Like magic whatever you did last is undone. Don’t you wish life came with a Ctrl + Z command? Here is a link to a table of common keyboard shortcuts. What are some of your favorites?

What makes things thrive over time? I’m not talking just over a few years, I mean decades, even centuries. I can sum that question up in two words - resilience and adaptability. Look at the Komodo Dragon. As a descendant of the ancient dinosaur, the Komodo Dragon has adapted to modern time. It is estimated that the Komodo Dragon has been around for 40 million years. The only way it is around today is because of resilience and adaptability. As things have changed over time, so has the Komodo Dragon. It has bounced back and adapted from harmful events. The same could be said for the common blue belly lizard, but let’s face it, the Komodo Dragon is more dramatic.

Let’s skip from the Komodo Dragon to today’s business. Ten years ago nobody was talking about social media, but you’d have to be living under a rock these days to not have at least heard of it.  There are many social media platforms around, but let’s focus on the most popular ones.

• Skype: Prior to 2003 nobody had heard of Skype, yet they are one of the leading VoIP (voice over internet protocol) providers, allowing for free video chats and Skype to Skype voice calls anywhere in the world. In order to use Skype, you have to download the software onto your computer, create a profile, and start connecting with your friends and family. A lot of companies are using Skype to conduct staff meetings, make international Skype to Skype phone calls, and even use it as an instant messaging system to message back and forth whether you’re in the next office or halfway around the world. Most smartphones (iPhone, Droid, Blackberry) have Skype applications that allow you to use the internet connection on your cell phone to make and receive Skype calls, thereby making it easier than ever to be accessible.
• Facebook: Founded by Mark Zuckerberg February 4, 2004, Facebook is today’s leading social media site. If Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest – did you hear that? The third largest! Think of the advertising potential just from having a free business “fan page” on Facebook.  In order to have a business “fan page” you first have to have an individual profile page. This profile page has to be set up as an individual who is authorized to represent your business. Then you create a business page. Here you can invite your friends, family, colleagues, and even clients to “like” or become a “fan” of your page on Facebook. From here the possibilities are endless. You create what is called a “status” to update your fans to things going on in your business; specials you are having, articles you have written, etc.
• Twitter: Founded by Jack Dorsey in 2006, Twitter allows for users to send short messages (140 characters) to “followers.” These messages can be opinions, links to your Facebook page or website, basically anything you want them to be. To create a Twitter profile, log on to Twitter, create a profile for your business, and start following respected people in your field. Once you have a profile set up, advertise that on Facebook, your website, etc. and start recruiting followers. If you become a dedicated “Tweeter” you will be amazed at the following you will receive. Again, with over 900,000 Twitter people, think of the endless opportunities to advertise your business – for free!
• Blogging: By simply reading this article, I assume you are familiar with blogging. My favorite blog site is WordPress. Blogging allows you to share your opinions in a more detailed fashion. Here you can write articles related to your business, post how-to videos, and then post links to these articles on Facebook, Twitter, etc. With blogging, you are unlimited by the character count and can be more relaxed in your message.
• YouTube: Finally YouTube. YouTube is a video hosting site where people post videos. You can view your favorite commercials, the latest “viral” video, music videos, and pretty much any “how-to” video you can think of. If you are a visual learner, type in what you are looking to find in the YouTube search box and more than likely someone has made a video for you to watch. It isn’t necessary to have a profile to view videos, but you do have to have a profile to post videos. Setting up a profile on YouTube is simple. Follow the on-screen instructions at the top of each page and start uploading videos today.

As you can see, this is just the tip of the social media iceberg. Businesses must have a strong online presence today in order to compete. Skype, Facebook, Twitter, Blogging, and YouTube allow you to create that presence. Think of social media as the Komodo Dragon of the 21st century. You aren’t going to get away from it, so you may as well accept the change and embrace social media or run the risk of becoming extinct like the dinosaur. So what do you say?

For some, combining a Facebook personal page and a business page is what they prefer. They say “I am who I am and I have nothing to hide. They can like it or not. I am me.” It is my personal opinion (and I must state this caveat to please my attorneys) that doing so could be social media suicide. Have you ever been tagged in a photo from way back without your knowledge, only to find out about it days later? Had a moment in time captured that you wouldn’t want your associates or clients to see, but would be perfectly fine for your friends / family to see? Have you “liked” a cause or political statement that might not represent the best for your business, but is something you stand by in the private section of your life? Well, having a linked personal and professional Facebook page could open you up to just that.

It doesn’t matter how much we are the same person in our professional lives as we are personally. Let’s face it, we are all pretty awesome, but there are some things we don’t want to comingle. When I go to my office I dress professionally, in a business suit, slacks and a blouse, and heels or boots, but when I get home the shoes come off, I hang up my suit, and throw on my comfy clothes. I wouldn’t think of meeting a client or showing up to work in my comfy clothes, but they are completely acceptable in my home or with my family. I like to apply the same principle to my social media. I have my personal Facebook page where I joke with friends / family, upload funny pictures, update my status, comment to my friends, vent my frustrations, etc. Then I have my professional Facebook fan page where I post articles that I have written, suggest articles written by admired professionals, update my status with my professional Twitter feed, advertise to prospective clients, converse with current clients, etc. For me, keeping them separate is what I feel most comfortable with. While I am the same person on the inside, carrying my philosophies and principals into my work environment, I am a bit toned down and more professional in my business. That’s not to say that your friends and family cannot support you in your business, they can. You just have to manage their comments and make sure they know up front that this is your “professional” page and all correspondence through that page should be treated as such.

Am I completely off my rocker? What are your thoughts? Please post a comment and share them with me. While I cannot promise to answer each and every comment, I will personally read all of them. I can’t wait to hear from you. And who knows, you might inspire a new blog post.