High-tech marketing: is content still king?

These days, as a home-based writing and PR consultant, I work with a lot of marketing teams. Most of them are in high-tech, and I am also working to build up a business involving green tech and health care. Marketing budgets have been slashed over the past couple of years. I don't have the numbers to show for it, only the anecdotal evidence and my own personal experience—enduring a 20% downturn in income since 2007.

When companies have marketing dollars to spend, they are ruminating long and
hard about how to spend it: what kind of messages and information will resonate
today?

Some people think that micro-blogging a.k.a. Twitter is a high-value activity for marketing when you have a tight budget. Yet despite all the hype it's unclear what tangible results most companies are gaining from social media, and there’s a lot of a palaver that's time-wasting and annoying. Behind the tweets and posts there has to be some useful, valuable content. I'm not talking about quick-hit promotions and spin but information that will help purchasers and decision-makers learn more about your products and services and their industry: research, analysis, predictions, and customer stories. It's about building a relationship, sharing information, and enriching a discussion with customers and other stakeholders.

In 1993, I began my career in journalism, and while I occasionally still write journalism pieces, the bulk of my work has evolved into corporate-sponsored writing and communications activities. I like to call myself an information broker. The same tenets that I learned at the American University M.A. program in Journalism in 1991 and 1992 still apply to my work today: research, relevance, and really good writing.

Sometimes however, I wonder if anyone really cares about that anymore. White papers seem to have gone by the wayside. Cases are getting shorter and shorter. The bulk of news and analysis publish exclusively on the web, which means articles must be tight, concise, and often lacking perspective. Blogging is hot -- yet there's plenty of blabber out there on the Web and it's hard to know what's credible and what's not.

I surveyed a few friends and colleagues for their perspective on the world of marketing content today, and here's what they said:

"Ultimately, I'm thinking the issue is less the mode of content delivery instead of the nature of the content itself," says Jason Gillikin, president of Gillikin Consulting which provides business communications services. “Material that speaks to the effectiveness of some new technology are going to play better than empty sales rhetoric, irrespective of the mode of delivery. So emphasizing the ROI will be a smart move. Show the customer how this new tech will make their lives easier or cheaper or reduce their carbon footprint. That, ultimately, will count for the most.”

Michael Schmier, VP of research and media at high-tech market research network Tippit, still believes in the power of white papers and case studies, as long as they are distributed widely on other sites. Blogging, if attached to a social media strategy, is another favorite of this San Francisco-based former marketing exec. And webinars on products can be very useful for customers, he says.

Michael: I agree wholeheartedly. I believe that diversity is paramount: technical people might enjoy spending five minutes watching a product demo while marketing-savvy execs can quickly breeze through your social media updates on their mobile phones. And, members of the media and prospects can get a better idea of the capabilities of your product or service by reading a well-written and engaging case study. Everyone knows such documents are always one-sided, but they can also offer a valuable snapshot into the real-life scenarios your company enables.

In the world of headlines and sidebars and video clips in which we now live, I sometimes mourn the halcyon days in which I could interview 7 or 8 people and spend hours researching a subject to pen a thoughtful and comprehensive 3,000-word piece. I hope that marketing folks won’t lose sight of the fact that not everything can be consumed in 10 seconds. Nor should it be.

What’s your take on the state of corporate-sponsored content? What do your clients and customers want?

When life gets rough, it's time to pamper

In the days before children, when life consisted of a small (yet very comfortable) townhouse in San Mateo, CA, my husband and I, and two very stressful jobs, we became quite adept at pampering. On Saturday morning we’d do the obligatory errands, then exercise, and then the remainder of the day (and Sunday) were committed to hanging out on our "deck" (the roof of our garage), reading, seeing friends, walking to dinner, and in the winter, enjoying a glass of wine by the fireplace. Weekends were bliss.

Once the kiddos arrived, pampering got lost in the diapers, bottles, and mountains of laundry. One lost all track of Monday versus Saturday…and when the small fries got older the weekends became even more busy and exhausting than the weekdays: errands, birthday parties, cleaning, outdoor adventures, play dates, bills.

Yet the fact remains: I still need to pamper myself.
For my husband, pampering consists of the Food Network, a beer, and/or ESPN. I love the simplicity and the consistency of that plan.

For me, on the other hand, I indulge in the following, sometimes even in one day:

1. Exercise. Yes, that's weird, but it is a form of pampering for me. Sometimes it's just a brief jaunt around the block with my dog. Other times it's a nice long run in the morning cool or a swim during the heat of the day. I feel completely rejuvenated when I’m done.

2. Chocolate. I don't have any rules about chocolate. When I need a square, I get it. Morning, noon or night. You’ve likely read about its antioxidants/health benefits but for me, it's that happy little feeling inside that does it for me. In my sedulous research over the years for the ultimate chocolate bar, I believe I have finally found it: Vosges Barcelona Bar.

3. Bath products. I like to say that I take lots of baths… I don't. I used to, but now, it seems to be impossible to find the time nor energy to fill up the bathtub again after I've already bathed and put to bed two energetic little girls. However, I do indulge in comforting lotions and bath gels. They don't have to be pricey. My personal favorite right at this moment is: Burt’s Bees Honey & Shea Body Butter. It's all natural and smells sooooo good. I also love L’Occitane bath oils, lotions, and shower products (for a few more greenbacks).

4. Wine. A glass of red wine in a beautiful stem: Oregon Pinot Noir, Argentinean or Chilean Malbec, Australian Shiraz, California Zinfandel, blends from Ridge. Paired with a commodious, cushioned chair, newspaper or magazine, and no children in sight— that's pretty much a spa experience for me. At about 1/10th the price.

5. Reading. History, biography, memoir, novel, People magazine, the Wall Street Journal weekend section. Those are my top picks. I'm sure that you have your own. On the couch or in bed, even just for 10 minutes—with a book I have successfully transported myself into someone else’s world. It’s magical.

6. Silence. This is rare, but if I remember to do it, I will shut my bedroom door before bedtime, warn my husband not to bother me for 10 minutes, and sit on the floor and just be still. We live in a quiet neighborhood right now so it's easy to obtain this blessed silence. I don't know which is better: the silence unbroken only by an occasional bird, or my immovable limbs. But it's a mini-vacation, for free.

7. Fancy coffee drinks. If I have a slow day I will go down to one of the many quaint little cafés in downtown Golden, order a mocha (with whipped cream, thank you), and sit down and read the newspaper or answer some e-mail. For just a few moments, I feel like an intellectual. And that's priceless.

8. Window shopping. I've gotten over the fact that I can’t spend much money on clothes and accessories these days. It's been that way for a while, and now I actually enjoy popping in to cute little boutiques or meandering through the shoe department at Nordstrom and just looking around at the latest styles. I might buy myself a lip gloss. Or not.

I would love to hear your top ideas for pampering: particularly, activities or items that don't cost a lot of dough. Now don't get me wrong: I love four-course gourmet dinners out, and I'd kill to go on a five-star resort vacation right now. I won't even be picky about the locale: beach, mountains, lakes, city, whatever. But that's for later. For now: it's pampering on a budget.

And you?

Moving with Young Children, 101

If you take natural disaster, divorce, death, and illness out of the equation, moving is hell. Moving with kids, especially those of the small type, is double hell. However, there are ways to get through it without losing your sanity, your marriage, and your overall sense of parental control. How do I know? I've done it now several times. Here is my rap sheet of credibility to offer tips on moving, with a timeline of the moves that I have gone through in my life:

1. 1977: Dallas to Denver with my brother and sister and a very large moving van.
2. 1986: Denver to Santa Barbara for college.
3. 1990, Summer: Santa Barbara to Denver after graduation.
4. 1990, Fall: Denver to San Diego.
5. 1991, Winter: San Diego back to Denver (broke)
6. 1991, July: Washington DC for graduate school.
7. 1992, September: Washington DC to Denver (broke)
8. 1996: Denver to Minneapolis (work relocation)
9. 1998: Minneapolis to San Francisco (fell in love, new job)
10. 2001: San Francisco to Boulder (husband gets new job)
11. 2003: Boulder to SF (husband loses job, finds new one)
12. 2004: SF to Seattle, baby in tow (this time, I get the new job)
13. 2005: Seattle to SF (2nd baby born, husband gets recruited back to the Bay)
14. 2009: SF to Golden, CO (leaving the rat race behind)

And here I am, 13 moves later, and I'm less than halfway through my projected lifespan. By far, the last three moves involving children were the hardest, yet also the most enlightening. Moving has taught us to be flexible and adaptive— and sometimes that means ice cream treats twice in one day to keep the kids calm.

Here are my 15 golden rules of moving with young kids:

1. Don't do it, unless you really really really need to do it.
2. Start planning and preparing for your move at least six weeks in advance… and for the love of God, make a list. And divide it with the spouse.
3. If you're moving to another neighborhood/city/state, make sure to inform the schools as early as possible of your kids’ departure so that you get back whatever deposit you put down (if private). Despite this, we still didn't get ours back, so expect disappointment. (Thank you so much, Serendipity Preschool in San Mateo, California, where I sent two of my children and parted with many thousands of dollars in tuition.)
4. Get bids from at least two recommended movers, preferably three. If your favorite mover can't get to the price that you want, ask them to throw in something for free like insurance, hotel vouchers, one month of free shopping at Whole Foods, a $500 gift card to Nordy’s…..
5. Ask for help. I'm sure that grandma and grandpa would love to come out and watch the kids while you pack boxes for the weekend.
6. If you are packing your own stuff, spread the grueling chore out over a couple of weekends. Trust me: you'll spend countless hours throwing out and sorting all sorts of crap you won't believe that you own.
7. Schedule two trash/recycling pickups: 2 weeks before your move and the second one the day after the movers leave.
8. If you can recycle or give away unwanted items, do it. You won't believe what people will want these days. If you don't have enough items for a garage sale, team up with a friend.
9. If you are moving out of state, reserve a hotel for three nights prior to the morning that you take off. Why? Night one will be the night before the movers load up your house, and nothing will be outside of a box. If you're like me, a clean comfortable hotel room is well worth the price after that hell. Night two, the movers have emptied your house, the kids are crying wondering where their toys are, you're feeling disconnected from your entire life, and that clean hotel room with a bottle of wine will be a welcome sight. Night three: you've just completed cleaning your empty house and yard, said goodbye to friends, and thus, need one last restful night’s sleep before the hideous drive across the desert/plains/mountains/swamp.
10. If you're driving to your new home for any considerable duration (i.e. more than two hours) do the following: go to Target, purchase several items from the dollar section, several arts and crafts kits, and many bags of unhealthy treats. Distribute them appropriately within your vehicles for easy access.
11. Remember, when you're on the road, there are no rules for eating: the more sugar, caffeine, salty food, the better. This goes for everyone in the family including the dog.
12. If you will be driving two cars with your spouse, please, please, separate the children. You'll thank me later.
13. If you don't have a portable DVD player by now for the kids, open up the rusty wallet and go buy one. It will be the best $150 (or less, perhaps) you’ve ever spent.
14. Don't skimp on hotels on the road. In places like Elko, Nevada, the best digs will still cost you half of any B-grade hotel in a big city. Get one with a swimming pool: the kiddies will have lots of energy to expend at the end of the 10-hour day in the car and they’ll fall blissfully into bed no later than midnight.
15. Get your buns up early when you have a long drive day ahead. The kids will still be groggy and you’ll have 1 hour of peace as a result.

That’s it. Those are my golden rules. I hope they work for you. And just remember: this too shall pass. Before you know it, you'll be in your new home/city, happily unpacked and sipping a glass of Pinot Noir on your back deck while the kids play peacefully and your husband cooks a lovely dinner of grilled salmon and fresh veggies from the garden. Or something like that.

Social media strategy on a small marketing budget

I have been experimenting with social media in my own business, in earnest, for a couple of years. I started with Linkedin for networking and frequently use the question-and-answer tool. One year ago I added Facebook, and six months ago, I started this blog and my Twitter account. I've quickly learned that all of these tools can be painfully time-consuming— particularly the last two. On the other hand, I do believe that at some point, they'll pay off for my business in ways I can’t predict now.

In the meantime, this experiment shows prospects and colleagues that I am investing in new media, which is fast becoming a critical source of information and knowledge-sharing for people in the business world. Since I am in the information business, I've got to use these tools or else, fall behind the times. Increasingly, clients are asking me to advise them on social media practices for promoting their message and building their business.

A small high-tech client I'm working with wants to dip its toes deeper into social media. The marketing chief has set up a Twitter account, which he has been posting news and observations to infrequently, and the company is about to launch a new Web site. Here's the challenge: we have an already constrained budget for PR activities, which means I will only have a few extra hours at most to spend on social media per week.

Yes, the tools are free, but time is not: whoever told you that social media is a cheap and easy way to promote your business is lying through their teeth.

From my own personal experience and the anecdotes of others, it can take 1-2 hours per day to achieve any significant marketing goals with these tools. My client doesn't have the budget to pay me those extra hours on top of all the other programs we have running.

Despite that barrier, I'm eager to get started but I'm also worried: How can we be efficient with the few hours that we have to spend? Automated tools for managing social media are now plentiful— so I know that incorporating these tools will be part of our strategy.

Here's my bare-bones social media plan for the client:

Purpose:

--To position [COMPANY] as an influencer and thought leader in prominent online media communities.
--To buttress and support PR and marketing efforts.
--To generate new marketing and sales prospects, potential partners, and community supporters aka viral friends.
--To gain useful insight into social media conversations around [XYZ] technology, to fuel media relations strategies, contacts and opportunities.

I. Twitter: Guidelines and Tools

There's no “right way” to use Twitter but increasingly, standards are arising about how corporations are using Twitter and some best practices are emerging. As a marketing and public relations tool, corporate Twitter accounts are focusing on striking a balance between self-promotional posts and educational/non-promotional conversations, and re-tweeting of others’ posts which relate to industry trends. Some guidelines that I have read suggest a 60% to 40% ratio of non-promotional to promotional tweets.


Useful links and tools for getting started:

Twitter Bible

Resource Super List

Twellow is a directory of public Twitter accounts, with hundreds of categories and search features to help you find people who matter to you.

Twitter Tips: How to Find Experts in Your Industry

Tweetscan. A great search engine for twitter to see what people are twitting about you, your blog, brand, company, product etc.

TweetMarks. This will help your bookmark your twits, keeping all of the links you share organized.

TweetDeck tips (TweetDeck is an excellent dashboard/browser for twitter that I use as my primary interface into Twitter. I love it.)

Twollo to automatically follow the people who are discussing the things I am interested in.

Twaitter allows you to schedule your tweets at specific times.

CoTweet enables multiple people to update just one Twitter account. A permissions console allows you to set up accounts for the team members you want updating the Twitter feed.

Twitter measurement

This is no hard science yet but some of the metrics include: number of followers, number of mentions or retweets, individual tweet performance, clicks per day, and clicks by geographic location. Fortunately, there are many free or low-cost automated tools that collect data for you and graph it. Recommendations for an initial metrics program:

--Number of followers and percentage of increase month to month.
--Number of mentions, replies, and retweets per month.
--Individual tweet performance: graphing how particular posts perform in terms of responses and mentions. This will be, ideally, an invaluable tool for PR/marketing efforts.
--Responses from media, customers, or other key constituents on Twitter to press releases and other news. We will track any contacts that come to us from Twitter.


Resources for analytics:

Eight excellent tools to extract insights from Twitter streams
http://www.socialmediatoday.com/SMC/80437


1. Hootsuite— This is another twitter client which also includes statistics tools.
2. Twitalyzer provides activities analysis of any Twitter user, based on social media success yardsticks. Its metrics include (a) Influence score, which is basically your popularity score on Twitter (b) signal-to-noise ratio (c) one’s propensity to ‘retweet’ or pass along others’ tweets (d) velocity - the rate one’s updates on Twitter and (e) clout - based on how many times one is cited in tweets.
3. Twist offers trends of keywords or product name, based on what Twitter users are tweeting about. You can see frequency of a keyword or product name being mentioned over a period of a week or a month and display them on a graph.
4. Tweetstats is useful to reveal tweeting behavior of any Twitter users. It consolidates and collates Twitter activity data and presents them in colorful graphs. Its Tweet Timeline is probably the most interesting, as it shows month-by-month total tweets since your joined Twitter.
5. Twitterfriends focuses on conversation and information aspects of Twitter users’ behaviors. Two key metrics are Conversational Quotient (CQ) and Links Quotient (LQ). CQ measures how many tweets were replied whereas LQ measures how many tweets contained links.
6. Thummit Quickrate This web application identifies latest buzzwords, actors, movies, brands, products, etc. (called ‘topics’) and combines them with conversations from Twitter. It does sentiment analysis to determine whether each Twitter update is Thumms up (positive), neutral or Thumms down (negative).


II. Twitter: Schedule and Content plan

1. Budget/Time: Minimum 1 hour per week (ideally, 2 hours) to maintain Twitter account. Below is what I believe to be a useful breakdown of time spent for .5 hour on social media, which I found from another marketer:

1. Sign up for an account at TweetLater (or another tweet scheduling tool).
2. Spend 10-15 minutes every day finding industry articles, news you find interesting, and thought leadership pieces that have nothing to do with you or your business and set those up to be distributed throughout the day. A good rule of thumb is that 60 percent of your tweets should not be self-serving. I set up my tweets 30 minutes apart.
3. Spend 10 minutes every day setting up your “self-serving” tweets - these are links to your blog, white papers the company has written, any articles written about you or that quote you, Webinars or podcasts you’re hosting, etc. A good rule of thumb is these should be only 40 percent of your tweets and you should space them out so they don’t come out all at once.
4. Spend 10 minutes going through your groups on TweetDeck and find things to RT (retweet) for your followers. This expands your follower base, shows that you listen, and provides great influence.


2. Content plan:

Post a minimum of 10 tweets per week consisting of:

--Tweets and retweets of related tech and industry news
--Company press releases (retweet 2-3 x over two weeks)
--Case studies and company media coverage (retweet 2-3 x over two weeks)
--General observations on company happenings or industry events
--Conference/event news
--Blog/site articles

The automated tweet scheduling tools allow you to develop an editorial calendar of tweets so that you can plan ahead and schedule when tweets post and how often. One rule of thumb that I have uncovered is to schedule your posts at intervals throughout the day, instead of all at once.


III. Blog

Ideally, we would launch a blog at the same time as our Twitter strategy. Given resources, this may not be possible, but a best practice is to not begin a blogging program until we are able and ready to commit to weekly posting. (Increasingly, there are services which automatically update Twitter with blog postings.)

Purpose:

--To position [Company] as an influencer and thought leader in prominent online media communities and with fellow bloggers.
--To buttress and support PR and marketing efforts, and as an educational vehicle for customers and prospects.
--To showcase speeches and thought leadership from company execs, and guest bloggers from the [industry] community.
--To engage in conversations with and generate feedback from customers, prospects, partners, and supporters.

Schedule: 1 posting/week. (300- 500 words)
Time commitment: 2-3 hours per week.


Challenges: Budget and resources for producing regular content. One strategy to counteract: cultivate relationships with guest bloggers to help mitigate the time spent creating original content. Strategy two: Re-post blogs on foundational topics.

Is it possible to gain value from social media by spending only a couple of hours per week? I'm not sure, but I'm determined to find out. I would love to find out how others who work for themselves or small companies are handling the time-sink issue. I have to keep reminding myself: social media is just another suite of tools to build a brand and engage customers and the broader community. It's not magic. At the end of the day, the message has to be crystal clear and targeted— no matter the tools that we use.

Ultimately, marketers and communicators need to figure out how to integrate these tools into our regular marketing and sales and customer service activities, without taking valuable time away from the physical time a.k.a. "personal touch" and attention we still need to offer customers and partners. I fear that were all getting too digital and are forgetting how to communicate in person and over the phone. What's the right balance?

Until next time, I'll be here, frazzled as always and trying to figure this all out.

Ode to Friends

In these trying times, many of us have been forced to get rid of the extraneous activities in our lives. It pains me, for instance, when I can't exercise as much as I would like. Or, when I can’t work on my creative writing projects. (Actually, when have I done that since having kids?) And reading: the book is central to my genetic makeup. Yet when it comes down to it, here's what I can't and won't give up (aside from work of course): a minimal amount of rest and some semblance of a healthy lifestyle, time with my family, and my friends.

Maintaining friendships is especially paramount if you work from home. Otherwise, you'll find yourself having lengthy, and potentially embarrassing, conversations with the UPS person, the grocery store clerk, the Starbucks clerk, and when no one else is available… the dog.

On July 31st, we left the Bay Area for Colorado. Both locales are beautiful, unique places—no doubt. Both offer ample opportunities for outdoor fun. Now that I no longer live in California I'll miss easy access to the ocean, wine country, and the mild Mediterranean climate. Sometimes, I will even miss access to Silicon Valley, the heartbeat of the technology world in which I work. (Although admittedly, I'm happy to be out of the fray right now).

But what I ruminated about as we drove across the desert toward the Rocky Mountains was how much I will miss my closest friends in the Bay: some of these are women whom I've known since college and others are women whom I have had the pleasure of knowing through my daughters’ schools over the past couple of years. These are friends whom I have cried with, exercised with, laughed with, and sent text messages and Facebook updates all hours of the day and night for critical updates such as: "Why can’t I be patient with my kids for one hour of the day…. I can't find my car keys, again…. I need a cocktail…"

Spending time developing relationships with my friends is truly a “value-add” use of my time, even when I have absolutely none of it to spare. No matter where I am, and no matter where they are, my friends keep me grounded in life and help me to realize that I am not alone, I am loved, and that there's so much beauty in the world to experience. My friends help me realize my potential, and have given me so many gifts: perspective, insights, laughter, spirituality, motivation, love, caring and support. Without them I would be in a perpetual state of inanition. My husband and children are my rock—I’d be devastated without them—yet my friends help me to feel truly whole.

Some of my friends I talk to infrequently, such as my dear high school pal Janel, who lives in New York City and has a decidedly different schedule than me, the suburbian mom. Yet we chatted for 30 minutes as I drove on desolate highways through Nevada, and now that I am reconnected with her, I am complete again.

I will have to make some new friends now that we are living in a different town. It may take a while, but from experience, it will be worth every moment spent in the effort.

Esteemed client: your lack of planning is not my disaster

Professionally, I refer to myself as a "communications consultant." But in reality, sometimes I think clients and prospects view me as: "sucker who will do anything for money or the promise of it."

Clients expect a lot, especially today, and generally speaking I'm happy to try and satisfy those needs in return for challenging work and a paycheck. However, when you are a freelance writer/marketer/editor/illustrator/designer, it seems like some folks think you're just dying to take their project at any price, under any conditions, because you are a creative and ultimately love what you do and will work at any hour of the day, weekends included, to fulfill your urge to produce meaningful content and change the world. You will even do some pro bono work if pushed. Sometimes all of those things are true —but I still don't like the underlying notion that while the client has lots of boundaries, I seem to have none (in their eyes, anyway).

A few months back, I made contact with a man who owns a startup software company. We had a few phone conversations and he called me into his office for a meeting about a blog that he wanted to produce with my help: one hour to learn about his company seemed like a fine investment of my time. After the meeting, several e-mails and other phone calls ensued with more requests for (apparently free) advice. Finally, I said to him: I think you're ready to get going on this project, so would you please send me over a contract so that we can officially begin work together? No contract materialized. Later, another e-mail appeared, stating that he had to put the blog project on hold to work on some other marketing activities. In my mind, the client was gone—at least for the near term. It happens, c'est la vie. But then, about a month later, I receive an e-mail from the guy, stating: "What happened, are you no longer interested in the blog project?" I replied: "I am indeed still interested, yet your last note to me asked me to hold off for now." I received no further replies or e-mails from him.

What the heck?

I have a real problem with flaky clients —and it seems like they are in ample abundance right now.

I don't put together a strategy plan for free, sorry. I am, however, willing to offer a few getting-started tips— which I did for this guy, to no avail.

Then there's the problem of getting things in writing. It shouldn't be hard -- but sometimes, it's like pulling teeth. A consultant should always have a work contract stating project scope, requirements, and agreed-upon rates and payment schedules. It not only protects the consultant but also the client. A couple of weeks ago, a new client sent over several legal docs for me to sign and fax back immediately. When I asked when I would see a contract for myself, she replied by e-mail: "I've never had this type of a request from freelancers. What exactly do you need? Is this e-mail good enough?"

I don't know, is it? Not for you guys, apparently.

She then went on to say how upright and honest her company is, how everyone always gets paid on time, and so on and so on. That's very nice, but it won't hold up in court. Anyway, I just don't get the big deal here: we're talking about a simple work contract, 200 words or less.

Another new client had a super tight deadline for me to accomplish this week— which I agreed to do, somewhat reluctantly, before our move to Colorado end of next week. The work was supposed to filter into my inbox a few days ago but hasn't appeared yet. Now, I have half the time to complete the project -- and I just don't see how it's going to get done. So I've prepared myself for the next conversation: you're going to need to hire some extra help pronto. I have provided a few reminders about my schedule— as I dutifully should. But I don't see this project ending well for them or for me. To be fair: who knows what's gone wrong here, but I'm expecting that I'll be asked to pick up the slack and if I say no, guilt pangs will certainly attack me in the middle of the night.

And then there's the problem of getting paid on time— don't get me started. But I will, soon, very soon… I have loads and loads of tips from my own experiences and others about how to handle late invoices. Fortunately, this hasn't happened a lot in my career, but enough to make me wonder what I can do to prevent it altogether. Late fees are often in my contracts, but that doesn't usually push a negligent or cash-strapped client to pay me any sooner.

Esteemed client, may I ask: are you late on your rent and utility bills?
Doubtfully. So why can't you just pay me on time, too?

Don't forget: I worked super hard for you, am highly ethical, and have bills to pay as well. This isn't clothing and vacation money—we do actually need to eat around here and buy toilet paper.

At this point you are possibly thinking: wow, is she ever ungrateful. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. I am from-the-bottom-of-my-heart thankful for every piece of work that I get these days, and for good clients, I will do everything humanly possible to meet their needs -- as long as it doesn't adversely affect my kids.

There is, however, one thing I can say say with certitude: some clients are worth losing, for your own sanity. Know when to cut the cord, respectfully of course, and work even harder for the clients who treat you well. Because when it's all said and done, the customer's always right (even when they're not).

Something’s Gotta Give

Just for the record, there's no such thing as "work-life balance." But you already knew that. At the moment, I'm trying to improve my work-sleep balance, yet until we get through with this cross-country move, forget about it. (We are moving from the Bay Area to the Denver area in August, to be near extended family and make a change that we think will be better for our family for the long-term.)

Beyond working (or trying to), researching schools, packing up, seeing friends, and all the millions of details corresponding to moving your family to another city, my state of frazzledom is at an all-time high. Most working parents would agree -- and you don't even have to be moving to experience these feelings of chaos.

My good friend and work-at-home mom Joanna suggested I cover the topic of "what gives" which I have to say is always top of mind for me. We can't "do it all" even though we want to—so it's always a smart idea every several months to take stock of everything you have going on and to weed out a few things. And it's also an even better idea to prioritize how you're spending your time.

For me, here's what's most essential today in my life:

1. Three to fours hours of rejuvenating sleep per night during the week.
2. Spending time with my kids and occasionally even having a conversation with my husband.
3. Exercising rigorously at least 15 minutes per week to compensate for my chocolate habit.
4. Working at least enough to pay for daycare, girls nights, and miscellaneous items like groceries.
5. Reading at least 5 minutes, of any text whatsoever, before passing out in bed.

After that, comes the following:

1. Seeing friends.
2. Keeping the house relatively clean and with a walking path cleared at all times.

Here are the things that I no longer do, and possibly never did:

1. Shower every morning (ah, one of the lovely benefits of working from home).
2. Style my hair and wear cute, coordinated outfits (unless of course I'm actually getting out of the house to do something fun).
3. Make home-cooked meals every night.
4. Chat on the phone with friends and family (other than my mom).
5. Print photos and put them into albums.
6. Volunteer.


It's not that I wouldn’t like doing these things, but there's just no time at the moment.
And that's my message here: what must you keep and what must you get rid of to maintain your sanity?

Decide, before you implode. I'm always curious to know what other people have opted not to do any longer, or still do but in a modified fashion. For instance, I love to cook but most weeknights I am pulling something out of the freezer such as chicken tenders, fish sticks, veggie burgers, or throwing together a quick spaghetti and salad dinner, veggie stir-fry, or kitchen sink burrito. My husband and I don't use recipes too much anyway, but we certainly don't cook anything that takes longer than 10 minutes to prepare during the week. We still eat healthy, and buy fresh produce, but I can't beat myself up over the fact that my work day ends exactly when my kids are starving. There's just no patience for slow cooking around here.

I'm also fascinated by those people who are proficient when it comes to being highly efficient: making their kids’ lunches the night before, laying out their children's clothes the night before to avoid early-morning arguments about why a four-year-old cannot wear her holiday party dress to preschool, doing menu planning for the week and shopping on Sunday, having organic groceries delivered to their door, and a number of other strategies which of course I rarely deploy myself.

One thing I am excellent about, I must admit, is organizing my life on my iPhone. If I don't have all those tasks and calendar items right there at my fingertips, they will be forgotten, neglected, and my life will be in even a more hopeless state of disarray than it is now. Thank you, Apple, and thank you to my obsessive-compulsive, detail-oriented mother for those productivity genes.

What are your secrets? Please, write me and do tell.

I just have one final thing to add here, which is of the highest importance: if your spouse does not equally help with household and kid-related tasks, figure out a way to divvy them up pronto. In our house, I pretty much handle the playdates and social calendar, school details/tasks, homework supervision, doctor appointments, and a lot of the errands and shopping. My husband does a lot of the cooking, folds the laundry, helps clean and pick up, and does the hideous job of taxes and financial management. He also is a genius at playing tickle monster with the girls when I need a break. If your spouse cannot handle such responsibilities, I advise you to find a new one at your earliest convenience. And I'm dreadfully sorry, but mine is not available.