QuickBooks Plug-in

Is your resume writing service one of 2.6 million small businesses using QuickBooks to maintain your financial records? I heard about a new product from my credit card merchant account provider that may interest you.

The SmartPayments™ products introduced by Hypercom intergrate electronic payments into QuickBooks Accounting software that may save you time and resources.

SmartPayments products are Microsoft Windows plug-in applications designed to capture transaction data from many popular Point-of-Sale (POS) applications. These products allow your business to process payment card transactions, automatically transmit the data to First National Merchant Solutions (my merchant account provider) and simultaneously update your QuickBooks Accounting software.

The integrated solutions support multiple users, include robust reporting features, and are set to auto-close your daily credit card transactions.

If you're interested in more information, call Hypercom at 888-679-0240. (It's possible the product works with your credit card merchant account provider too.)

I use Mac products exclusively, so I haven't tried this, but I thought it might be of interest to resume writers who process a large number of credit card transactions each day (for example, resume writers who subcontract their writing out to other resume writers.)

When Mother Nature Attacks...

Just yesterday, I talked with my insurance agent after receiving my business insurance renewal policy. I wanted to make sure that my coverage was still adequate, since it had been a couple of years since I'd looked at it.

Good thing. A huge, fast-moving storm moved through today, packing 80- to 100-mile-per hour winds. We lost two of our mature trees in our yard (see photos), although it could have been much worse. Neither tree hit the house -- although the way the wind was blowing in (straight from the west), the one in the back yard should have crashed into the house. Instead, it fell to the south, taking out the fence, but sparing the house.

Although we didn't have damage that would require filing an insurance claim, I'm glad that I have business insurance (in addition to our regular homeowner's insurance). If the tree had come into the house, we'd have business interruption coverage that would help replace the lost income from not being able to work while the home was being repaired.

As I told my husband MANY times today ... it could have been a lot worse.

Let our loss be your gain -- take the time to double-check your insurance coverage. Make sure your limits are adequate for your equipment, and consider business interruption coverage.

Ideas for "Prospering Despite a Downturn Market"

As I mentioned last week in my post on Free Continuing Education, Career Directors International offers free monthly "Best Practices" teleclasses to help resume writers and career coaches brainstorm best practices.

Yesterday, I cleared my schedule for an hour to listen to the most recent one, "Best Practices in Prospering Despite a Downturn Market." There were some great ideas. I was particularly interested in some of the strategies shared by career coach Laura Drew, of Carolina Career Coach, Inc.

One of Laura Drew's best practices is quite attention-getting. She ordered double-sided business cards from VistaPrint. On the back side is a list of teleclasses she offers. She also ordered a baseball cap that has "JOB HUNTING?" in all capital letters. On the business cards, she wrote the word "Hat" in the corner. When she wears her hat out in public (while she's running her errands, she notes), people ask her about the hat, and she gives them her "elevator pitch" and business card.

In one recent outing, she took 50 business cards with her; by the time she got home, she had distributed 47 of them. Those 47 cards turned into 13 paying clients.

That's just one of the ideas from the teleclass. There were more. Members of Career Directors International can access the MP3 audio files from all previous calls, including:

• Background Investigations Mega Trends
• Best Practices in Career Services Pricing
• Best Practices in Coaching Clients Using SWOT Analysis
• Best Practices in Creating Resume USPs
• Best Practices in Millennial Resume Writing
• Media Strategies Tips Seminar
• New Trends in Interviewing
• Paperless Resumes Mega Trends Report
• Resume Fraud Mega Trends Report
• Selling Career Research Services to Clients
• Social Networking Mega Trends Report
• Toast of the Resume Industry (TORI) Q&A
• 2008 CDI Conference (Seattle, WA) Q&A
• World's Best Resume Writer Competition Q&A
  

And here are the upcoming free teleclasses from Career Directors International:

• July 22: Best Practices in Advertising Your Career Service Business
• Aug. 12: Best Practices in While Life/Office Organization
• Aug. 20: International Resume and Career Services Q&A
  
• Sept. 16: Best Practices in Resume Data Mining (Client Information Gathering)
  

Laura DeCarlo is offering a special CDI membership offer for Resume Writers' Digest readers: Join CDI by July 31 and save $25 off the regular membership. Use this link: JOIN CDI and type in "Resume Writers Digest" in the comments box. The cart will show $150, but your credit card will only be charged $125 (you save $25).

Here's another quote from a CDI member who also listened to the best practices audio:

"I just finished listening to the recording of the 'Prospering Despite a Downturn Market' teleseminar. WOW!!! An hour of my time well spent. Thanks, Laura, for giving us such an extensive list of great, mostly free, ways to market and build business. I'm glad I was keyboarding everything you said, so I didn't miss much. You offered a number of specific things to do and places to go to get them done -- things I can get moving on right away. Some are things already on my to-do list, some are new ideas to me. A terrific push to be proactive and work thorugh slow times. I'm all fired up and anxious to get started."
-- Meg Guiseppi, Executive Resume Branding

A Cinderella Story

Wow, what a story of persistence. As I wrote in yesterday's post, the Georgia Bulldogs took on the Fresno State Bulldogs in game three of the College World Series, college baseball's national championship. Down 5-0 in last night's game, the Fresno State team battled back to win 19-10, evening the series to 1 win apiece.

So it all came down to tonight's game. Fresno State took a 6-0 lead and never looked back, winning the national championship 6-1. This was a true team effort -- pitching by committee, no first round MLB draft picks (although Georgia had 2 on their side, including ace closer Josh Fields), two of their best players battered and bruised (two playing with serious hand injuries) -- and their star pitcher had been injured earlier in the year and didn't even make the trip to Omaha.

Called one of the "greatest sports stories in recent years," the unseeded Fresno State team was an unlikely national champion. But they gutted it out.

"Fresno State was forecast to be a Top 25 team coming into the season, but the Bulldogs lost 12 of their first 20 games. They needed to win the Western Athletic Conference tournament just to make the NCAA field of 64, fought off elimination in regionals and super regionals, and became the first No. 4 regional seed to reach the CWS since the tournament expanded in 1999."

I tell you this story because it's an inspirational tale. Sure, your client may not have the qualifications on paper, but if they can just get the chance to do the job, they can "hit one out of the ballpark." In the end, the one that wins is not the one with all the credentials, but with the guts.

Congratulations to the Fresno State Bulldogs...



(The 2008 College World Series theme song -- with some great shots of Omaha -- oh, and cornfields...)