“I do not mean to suggest for a moment that all it takes to be a top executive is a custom-tailored European suit. You also need the correct shirt and tie.” – David Barry, American Writer, Humorist, known best for his newspaper column with the Miami Herald.

Working for many years in a corporate office it became customary to help your executive prepare for an important meeting or dinner and this preparation included helping them fix or tie their tie. It always amazed me how so few of them knew so little about tying a tie or even picking a tie out, sometimes they would pick these horrible colours or patterns and all I could say was “you look great” (I lied through my teeth) – I mean they didn’t actually look bad but the tie always seemed to be a problem. I had to wonder if they picked these ties themselves or if someone else had picked it for them, was it the suit or the shirt. Don’t get me wrong I am no fashion guru by any means but even I knew that the tie looked bad. I thought perhaps that when I became a small business owner that would change…wrong it only got worse! Small business consultants often talk about making an impression on clients or potential clients through your business image and I mean beyond your logo and business cards but amazingly many small business owners don’t seem to worry that their clothes are saying all the wrong things, especially men’s ties. Colour, Pattern and the all important Knot are everything when trying to make a good impression.

The first step in pursuit of the perfect tie is Colour. Its important to pick the right colour when buying a tie - it tells a story about who you are and what your trying to achieve, think about the kind of impression you want to make on that potential client or existing client and what your tie is saying about you. Obviously, don’t forget about the colour of your suit, shirt, and shoes but be sensible about your tie colour, below is a small colour guide to help you in your own personal pursuit of the perfect tie:

• Green Necktie – conventional and traditional
• Yellow Necktie – positive, optimistic, detailed
• Orange Necktie – enthusiastic, open-minded, humor
• Red Necktie – action, drama, advancement, eye-catcher
• Turquoise – open-minded, young, impression
• Magenta – dignity, self-confidence, creativity
• Black – traditional, respectable, non-attention getter, mystery
• Brown – stability, earth, self-confident, goal reaching
• White – distant, innocence, clarity *in the orient white presents death
• Blue – intellectual, reflective, peace, honesty, honor

Once you have found your perfect tie colour come back and read Step 2 where we will discuss different types of tie knots and sizes, why its important to have the right tie knot and size when your looking to make that great impression! Stay Tuned!

As an administrative professional I receive many documents, emails, presentations and the like on a daily basis, but I have to admit that it often bothers me to look at these pieces of electronic copy. Electronic copy when its received from clients and business associates in the right format with good presentation are supposed to impress me, excite me, move me, present me with a call to action, in short make me want to do something but most of the time it does exactly the opposite. Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, poor sentence structure, and a total lack of consistency and presentation make me glance at it and if possible delete the electronic copy altogether. “Bad document days” are becoming all too common and here’s the catch, it doesn’t matter if the documents are coming from big businesses or small businesses, they are just showing up in my inbox practically pleading to be deleted and making me wonder if I really want to do business with any of these companies.

To Fluff or Not to Fluff? That is the ultimate question for any small business owner. Often times we as small business owners are in a hurry to “get things out the door”, but often we are so busy meeting deadlines that we forget everything that leaves our office is going to be seen by potential clients and business associates. Lest we not forget, some of our competition, we also forget that these documents are going to be speaking volumes about who we are and what we do. So, you need to ask yourself before sending that all important presentation or e-mail should I fluff the document or not.

Document Fluffing is easy and you don’t really have to do a whole lot to achieve an eye catching document or e-mail you just have to take an extra 5 or 10 minutes before you hit the send button.

Here are some easy and fast tips to help you fluff your way to document bliss:

• Ensure your document has proper page numbering, headers and footers including proper footnotes;
• Ensure your document has consistent alignment i.e. justified, left aligned, et al.;
• Ensure your document is using the same font set including the color of your font and in addition ensure that your font size is consistent including spacing between lines and paragraphs;
• Use paragraph markers to ensure that you have don’t have unwanted spaces and hard returns between words and paragraphs;
• Ensure bolding, italicizing, numbering and the like are consistent throughout the document, i.e. if you bold sub-headings make sure all sub-headings are bolded;
• Ensure that you do a full spell check before saving the document, reading documents with spelling errors can be difficult and uncomfortable for the reader;
• Think Global Changes when your fluffing your document.

Happy Fluffing!
“Fluffing a document is equivalent to finding true document happiness”

"Without the strength to endure the crisis, one will not see the opportunity within. It is within the process of endurance that opportunity reveals itself".
-- Chin-Ning Chu

When I started my company 4 years ago I didn't really know what was going to happen. Was I going to be successful? Could I survive in my first year of business? Would I be able to handle the criticism that I knew people would have no problem giving me if I wasn't successful? These were some serious questions that I honestly wasn't sure I would be able to answer both in my personal and professional life.

I read a lot of books on the how to's of business, you know the ones I am talking about how to write a business plan, how to brand, how to get clients, how to advertise and yet I wasn't sure how to endure in my business. I tried everything to figure out how to endure the emotions, the set backs, and all of the other negatives that can occur at the start of a new business but I felt like I was stuck and I felt as though I were I trying to climb a mountain without a rope which we all know is a pretty silly thing to try and do so what was I thinking by starting my own business without the rope?

I needed to learn that in order to do good business I had to endure the hardships, the not so great parts about owning and running a small business, the parts that make you want to run out and buy the newspaper so you can look for that full-time job and forget all about running a small business, the parts that make you wake up at 3:00am wondering what your next move is going to be.

I made a decision that regardless of what I was going to have to endure I would endure it and I would persevere through all of the emotions and trials and tribulations of running a small business. I decided that if I was going to make this work and be successful then I was going to have to in no uncertain terms "suck it up" and learn how to deal with running a small business. That was the best attitude adjustment I had ever given myself and guess what I didn't need an emotional plan I just needed to trust myself and trust that I could succeed at small business.

Remember Strength and Endurance Build Good Entrepreneurs!

"Succeeding is not really a life experience that does that much good. Failing is a much more sobering and enlightening experience".
-- Michael Eisner

“Success is not built on success. It's built on failure. It's built on frustration. Sometimes it’s built on catastrophe.” Sumner Redstone - CBS & Viacom Chairman

Taking the leap from my ‘job’ to being “self-employed” to being a “small business owner” caused a major amount of disruption in my life in everything from my finances to my personal life but the disruption didn’t come in the form of situations it came in the form of emotions. I can honestly say that I have experienced every emotion that is possible to feel as a small business owner and have managed to see my way through the sometimes overwhelming and almost swallowing like emotions that come along with small business territory.

Of all of the emotions I felt and still feel today fear is by far the one that is the most persistent and grueling of the emotions to deal with. I recognized early on that without dealing with the emotions of being a small business owner I wouldn’t make a very good business owner so I accepted that as part of the initiation. I realized that fear in particular was not an emotion that was going to go away it was an emotion that I was going to have to deal with on a daily basis and learn how to overcome it in order to be able to use it to my business advantage. There are so many fears for a small business owner that it is almost next to impossible to narrow them all down because not unlike the small business owner fears come in different forms too, there is the fear of failure, the fear of losing, the fear of the infamous “what if?” the fear of truth, the fear of criticism and the list goes on.

The thing that helped me the most in my business was understanding that if I was able to get through the never ending list of fears then I could take what I had learned and use it to my business advantage I could take the information that I had gained from that emotion and turn it into something positive. I could take that information and be better prepared for the next round of fears that I knew in my gut I would be experiencing even though I didn’t know exactly when.

Remember, as a small business owner that fear or any emotion that you experience along the way is the reality helping you to build your business and build yourself as a business owner, it is providing insight and answers to questions and situations that your experiencing now and will continue to experience as you grow your business. Fear will provide the strength and inspiration to help you move forward with your business and let you know how to make better business decisions.

Be inspired by your emotions! Be inspired by your Fear!

“The successful person makes a habit of doing what the failing person doesn't like to do.” Thomas Edison, Inventor

“Certified, educated, ambitious, loyal, and above all else an independent thinker.” These were some of the things that I was told made a good assistant and qualities I knew came to me naturally. I had always worked within a corporate environment, working alongside the best and brightest and doing my job to the best of my ability.

I didn’t realize that I would be Re-org’d, Enron’d, & 911’d all in the span of 5 years, not to mention the numerous contract positions I took in my quest to find the perfect corporate company, in the perfect working environment, supporting the perfect executive….It was never to be. The moment that I realized my destiny was the moment that I took off the corporate cap and stepped into my new entrepreneurial duds officially becoming a small business owner. This was both the most difficult decision and easiest decision that I ever had to make. Administrative Assistant to Entrepreneur…I took a leap and “Documents on the Go” came to be!

Not unlike many small business owners you don’t plan on owning and operating your own business it just happens…you wake up one day and know that this is what you want to do and what you have to do in order to be fulfilled at a professional level. You know in your ‘gut’ that you are ultimately responsible for your professional successes and failures and that it is up to you to succeed. The part that becomes difficult about owning a small business is getting everyone else - family, friends and other colleagues on board with you to believe in your new venture and to believe in you. It is not uncommon for even the closest of family members and friends to think that if you’re not out there struggling in the 9 to 5 grind that somehow you’re slacking off, that your avoiding what the rest of the world has to deal with everyday, and that owning your own business is an easy way out - In reality it’s the easiest way in.

From one entrepreneur to another I advise that you have faith in yourself and your ability to make your business successful. Remember that we all have the same ability to make decisions about our future but how each of us chooses what to do is completely individual. Of course it is always easier to start a new venture with all of the emotional support that you can find but the reality for most entrepreneurs is that they have very little support especially if the new business venture is something that is not going to make millions overnight. I am certain that if I had made one million dollars in my first year most of the people around me would have a completely different attitude towards what I do and why I do it.

“Are you sorry…you know that you started your own business?” That’s the question that I am asked the most by friends, family and strangers aka new clients my answer is always the same: no, I’m not sorry I started my own business. I don’t believe that I have ever been happier. I used to think that being happy meant living up to some sort of societal expectation, or that I had to have that perfect job in order to make everything complete. I realize that it is Documents on the Go that makes me happy and that each day I get up it’s me that makes it happen, and it’s me that makes the decisions about how I succeed and what makes me complete. For this kind of entrepreneurial gift I can only say thank you and that I know I will never go backwards only forwards.

“Forget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget about everything except what you're going to do now - and do it.” William Durant, founder of General Motors