The trouble is that jobs often drag on, and change shape without having a sense of completion.  In fact your customers may not really know whether you have done a good job or not, but they will certainly be able to tell if the project is not completed.

I was reminded of this recently as I discovered a leak in a radiator and needed to call a plumber urgently.

My normal plumber did not reply, so I called another who had been recommended as good value and reliable. He came promptly, and all seemed to be well, and I was thinking that I could use this new plumber in future as he is much more local.  The carpets were getting soaked, and water was pouring down walls so I didn’t get comparison quotes – I needed quick action.

After the new radiator was installed, and the plumber had gone I glanced outside and noticed the old radiator propped up against a wall.  Now I may not be an expert on plumbing but I certainly know customer service when I see it.

I expected the old radiator to have been taken away.  It is extremely heavy, and I have no way of disposing of it at all.  So I had to phone the plumber up and ask him to take it away.  He did so, but without an apology and rather grudgingly.

Dirty old radiator not taken away at the end of the job

I have no reason to believe the plumbing is not first class, but I am not capable of judging it fully.  The leak has stopped.  However I can judge  customer service, and in my opinion it fell short of what I expected.  So he did not wow me.  The next day my original plumber returned my call as he had been away on holiday and apologised.  Next time he will – yet again – be my first phone call.

Even if we are not plumbers we still have radiator-removal in our business, so we finish the job cleanly.

The final parts of a project are in many ways even more important than the beginning.  Where things have gone wrong it is a chance to get back on track, and where they have gone right you can look back together knowing the work has been completed well.

The final assessment, or even a thank you helps to cleanly finish one scope of work, and tidy up.  It brings a sense of completeness and helps you to look good in your customer’s eyes.  Doing it really well brings that wow factor which is the best marketing in the world.

Mmm perhaps I’ll retrain as a plumber!

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I have just done a gentle purge of last month’s inbox and discovered a few that I had not read, including one person who is keen to come to my blogging workshop on International Women’s Day.

The email does seem to come in rather erratically so this is a good double check.  Luckily nothing was more than a day or two over, but even so, I am surprised that I missed them.  It is not the kind of thing that should have with a well-run business!

I am talking about my computer not Iphone, and of course the computer can cope with any size of read or unread emails, there is no problem about storage of data.  What is far more important is the clearing of clutter from my mind, and reducing any overwhelm.  Thousands and thousands of unread emails in fact slow down both computer and business owner.  When the unneccessary stuff is cleared away, we feel clearer, more in control, ready for new opportunities and the spark has a chance to shine!

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It has got to be good for SEO as real words are being used now.

An added bonus is that it is easier to see how many posts attract views in my hosting statistics. This was completely unexpected and makes life much easier. I will add Google analytics when I have found the plug in, but this is good for now.

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You pick from your prescribed themes and off you go. This is true for Wordpress.com. At Wordpress.com your blog is hosted on the Wordpress.com site so effectively you have the benefit of the masses of traffic that goes to the site, it is extremely quick to set up but you don’t get your own domain name, and you are not building your own business asset.

Then it transpired that the place to go is Wordpress.org where you can sign up for a blog under your own domain name. So off I went, did it all, and have got juicy statistics about 2 weeks later of 13,000 hits. If I had been on the .com site they would all have gone to the greater Wordpress site not to my domain specifically.

Having got the .com / .org division clear in my mind at last I was completely bemused by the instruction to get an API key from Wordpress.com. Not being naturally technical I felt rather exhausted by the whole thing and procrastinated. I had separated the two Wordpress sites and couldn’t put them back together again. I thought I was going to be forcefully swept into some blog vault from which I would never appear… and my blog would be torn apart by ravening wolves.

I so completely didn’t trust the instruction that I put a comment on twitter and asked for help but none appeared. So a week later I decided to believe the instruction and obey it. I have just been over to Wordpress.com, filled out the profile and signed up, and now am the proud owner of an API key.

Wordpress.com - get the key

The point of the API key is to help remove spam from your blog. I am glad to say I have had no spam yet, but know that the client blogs I work on get a lot. So spammers I am ready for you. Bring it on. Let’s test this API key – and make sure it is worth it!

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Technorati Profile

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Beautiful countryside, good food, good conversations, visiting places I knew as a child, connecting with where I have come from.   Great memory: sitting in the sunshine on the day before Easter in the company of about 25 relatives (not including my own family who had gone with me!).

Inspirational, relaxing and very satisfying to the soul.  Plus so lovely to see wild country and stone houses built to withstand the weather.  Six hundred miles of driving but I am remarkably relaxed! Why?

1. I took time off!  (and genuinely had a break)

2. My blog posts written while I was in work mode went out while I was away.

3. Website statistics have gone up.

Note to self:

Can take more time off – it is fun and I work better afterwards!

Plan and group activities

More blogging!

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So if I want to relate the post to something that has happened,  I can make the post current with the event.

Writing a post in advance and scheduling it for publication in the future is obviously a great tool, but I hadn’t realised we could go – if not back to the future – then forward to the past.

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