You know what little the guy says, “15 minutes could save you 15% or more. . .” I might adopt a similar catch-phrase, “15 minutes could save you hours and hundreds or even thousands of dollars.”

Most businesses NEVER take advantage of the many free and low-cost tools available to run, organize and promote your business. Even when they do, many features go underutilized or not used at all. This results in hours of wasted time, costly errors, incomplete projects, and often leads to unnecessary purchases of additional software and services.

I provide group and individual training and consulting on key business applications. The training is typically done remotely and allows me to demonstrate features by showing my screen or by viewing and controlling your screen. 15-30 minutes of consulting or training can result in hours of increased efficiency and a far greater understanding of what is possible with your applications.

To fully understand the potential productivity gains, see the “PRODUCTIVITY PROFILES” below.

If you have any questions on these topics, feel free to call me at:

818-584-6288 or 480-294-7752.

You can also reach me online on google chat at: cbtoolkit ( at ) gmail [dot] com
or on skype at: cbtoolkit

AREAS I AM HELPING PEOPLE WITH MOST OFTEN ARE:

Microsoft Office Assistance and Training:

• Microsoft Word, Advanced Excel Spreadsheets and Automation (Macros)
• Presentation Assistance: Powerpoint without boredom!!
• MS Publisher – newsletters both setup and content

Microsoft Access Database Development

• MS Access to SQL Server (DB Management & Administration)
• Customized Reporting

Social Media Development, Setup, Training

• Blogging (WordPress), Podcasting/Videocasting, Live Video Streaming
• Integrating Facebook, Twitter and Others into your marketing and business.

Google Applications Setup, Migration, Training

• Google has email and MS Office style programs with documents, spreadsheets, and presentations you can work on with others users simultaneously. FREE!!! In many cases.

PRODUCTIVITY PROFILES

Real-Estate Development/Sales/Commissions
The controller and accounting department for a client in Arizona had a complex Excel commissioning system that required several days of input and adjustments each month. The manual process was time-consuming and often resulted in errors. Using MS Access, in less than 5 days, I created a way to calculate and track commissions and even provide a way for sales reps to see 30 day revenue forecast. The system allows input from multiple computers and has been in place for more than 2 years with 100% accuracy.

Legal/Document Assembly/Automation
A law-firm had the need to create more than 200 contracts with specific language requirements based on various criteria. Their initial plan involved a team of associates and paralegals over more than 6 weeks – manually creating the documents. Working with them, I built an Access database to track all the criteria and the language libraries. 14 days after starting the project, we pushed a button and Microsoft Access opened MS Word and created all of the contracts in 20 minutes with 100% accuracy!

Real-Estate Sales/Free Google Apps
A real-estate office in Toledo has employees in an office and working from home. They needed an email solution and a way to easily share documents. I helped set them up and then remotely train them on Google apps where they now have their company email and shared documents, spreadsheets, and presentations – all for FREE!.

Mortgage Banking/Email Marketing
A mortgage lender, in Bakersfield, had been struggling for a couple hours to do a customized email message to selected Outlook contacts. I logged into his computer remotely and in 15 minutes we had his message sent and he has since used what he learned repeatedly to reach out to his prospects and customers.

Tea/Specialty Products/Marketing Materials
An entrepreneur friend and I connected on Facebook where she had posted being in “Microsoft Word hell”. I logged in remotely and 10 minutes later the formatting problem she had struggled with was solved and she had a greater understanding of how to solve several other challenges.

You can take the survey here:
http://bit.ly/bqKZdV

I’ll keep it open for the next week or so but I found some of the results interesting. There is great interest in how to stream video but only mediocre interest in social media.

Top topics:
1) streaming video
2) free utilities
3) how to stay current with technology
4) financial reporting
5) pc performance (surprised me a bit)
6) microsoft office (shouldn’t surprise me)
7) how to create a similar survey (funny)

Least interest:
1) remote access (this surprised me a lot because of how many clients want/need it)
2) networking my office/sharing data
3) social media (found this very surprising given the hulabalu)

Favorite learning method
1) Hands on/one-on-one
2) Live workshops

Least favorite learning method
1) A book or manual

It is part of my Songwriter & Social Media Tour, as I am playing music the night before and night after in Ruidoso as well.

If you want to find out more and register for the event, go to the eventbrite registration page at:

For more information, including content and contact information, click the link above.

* discount code for Ruidoso Chamber members. Contact the chamber.

The failure occurs when either the business owner/management assumes the "computer guy" understands his business – from a strategic standpoint, or when the business owner/management is certain the "computer guy" doesn’t understand his business and therefore excludes him from the strategic conversations.

In the role of Virtual CIO/Technology Advisor, I provide the strategic go-between for business management and IT departments or technical vendors.   Bridging that gap can result a huge cost savings and reduce future headaches.

Case-Study:
A client of mine was getting ready to initiate a series of system-wide upgrades – both hardware and software.  I was brought in to evaluate the vendor proposals for completeness & competitiveness – did they achieve the desire results.

However, as I sat there discussing the business objectives, current challenges, and business growth plans, the VP of Finance and the Controller (charged with managing the upgrade and approving the purchases) both commented that my conversations with them were the first where we started to identify their business objectives.

The vendors had identified current technology and for the most part were quoting/proposing upgrades to the existing infrastructure – based on past technology, not an future business growth.

In the case of this upgrade, we discovered nearly $100,000 of unnecessary purchases and by the time we had re-evaluated their strategic plans, we had reduced spending by nearly $150,000 and created a 2 year strategic plan.

It isn’t really the cost-savings that is most profound, it is the fact that the purchases they made actually had a value-impact on their organization.  The net effect is greater than the cost savings.

They way I explain it is that they had been given a grocery list but did not have a recipe.   In fact, what I told them at the outset was that I could not promise them we would reduce cost – only that the cost we identify would be part of a recipe; they would be purchases of strategic value.

Are you creating grocery list without a recipe?

Wrote a blog post over at IT Toolbox about digital communications.

I am starting to compile some ideas as part of a presentation on effective communications tools and strategies for business.

If you have specific ideas you think should be addressed, comment here or at IT Toolbox.

In particular, data analysis, decision support and automated reporting systems, workflow & business process re-engineering, and document assembly are my greatest areas of passion.

They form the crux of what Kreative Knowledge provides our clients.

We focus on utilizing tools that are readily available for most organizations.  Microsoft’s Office Suite (Access, Word, Excel, Powerpoint – and other apps) include Visual-basic for Applications (VBA).  VBA is the underlying programming language to Microsoft Office.  It goes far beyond the simple macro languages of the past.

VBA’s ability to interact with external applications using .NET and other technologies, allowing it to tie-into a variety of internal database systems, provides a tool that if often unused or underutilized in most organizations.

At Kreative Knowledge, we believe the simplest solution is often the best.  The ready-made tools that are already built-into Microsoft Office provide a rapid development and integration platform for automating all types of business process.

For instance, if your organization pulls data from an accounting or sales system and then creates Excel sheets for reporting or analysis, it is very likely that the manual process you go through to create those spreadsheets can be fully-automated.

This streamlines your reporting and removes costly errors and manual labor.

If you would like to find out more about the possibilities of automating your business processes and reporting, contact Kreative Knowledge.

The client actually received a blank spreadsheet each ordering period, filled in their order, and sent it back.  The problem was it left too many decisions to the customer.  Mistakes in data resulted in numerous questions, mistakes, and customer calls.

Here is why technology is really amazing.  She sent me the sheet, we discussed, via a Skype call, what they needed, I created a simple proof of concept in about an hour, and then shared my desktop and demonstrated where I was going.

After some modification and process questions, they had a new solution, using Excel lookup values on a hidden sheet, protected fields, and checks and balances to ensure the client’s order was correct when submitted.

So far, they have had a 95% reduction in customer calls and have had a 100% reduction in errors.

For me, removing manual and tedious labor is a passion.

The fact that tools exist that allow me to quickly assess and then demonstrate a solution – all remote – means I can save my client’s money while providing amazing results.

Setting up data validation using a lookup list is extremely simple.  This tutorial uses named ranges.  If you are unfamiliar with named ranges, watch this short video first.

 
Download the higher quality
Windows Media Version here

If you have questions or comments, leave them here on the blog site or email me.

Therefore, let’s call this an Email Communication Strategy…

After reading Tim Ferriss’ book, The 4-Hour Work Week, and having conversations with Laura about overall effectiveness – and my general inability to concentrate due to repeated interruptions, I’ve decided to cut the digital umbilical chord – and not check email on a constant basis.

I’ve included a rather lengthy addition to my email signature, explaining the change and how to best contact me – and when.  Hint: contact me via email, like always, unless this is a critical, must-be-answered now type of things.

Must be answered now is not a narcissistic, “I’m very important, answer me right away.” situation.  You are, without a doubt, very important to me.  However, email is not for conversation – particularly back and forth exchanges with no useful outcome.  To understand this more fully, read Ferriss’ book or check out this blog entry.

By the way, I fully understand and acknowledge that those interruptions were allowed by me – they are not the senders fault.

My basic strategy is to check email 2 times a day.  However, I also understand that this is a fairly dramatic change from my prior pattern.  Therefore, I will provide a weaning period – between now – 11/20/2007 – and 12/1/2007.

Technorati Tags: email, productivity, consulting, communicaitons, ferriss, efficiency