ProBiz Partners Blog

You always hear the horror stories of the experiences that other people have with domain names or host providers or email providers. But when it hits home you realize just how nice it was when people relied on telephones and in-face meetings instead of the internet.

I’ve recently been telling everyone about the sudden turnaround in customer service that I’ve been experiencing. All during the holidays I was greeted with helpful, knowledgeable sales people everywhere — even in the big box stores. I was sure it was a Customer Service Revolution!

Right up until last week when I ran smack dab into Mr. GoDaddy. I actually have a much more colorful name for the supervisor at my ex-hosting company, but probably best not to print it here.

“Oh, we took down your site?” “Too bad. Your problem. Fix it.”

Me? Fix a script that’s runninig on YOUR server, and running a script that I can’t see? Fix something that I have no control over?

“Yep.” “Your site. Your problem.”

Fine. Then I’ll tell everybody I know that GoDaddy’s customer service [expletive deleted].

“OK. Anything else I can help you with today?”

ARRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

I knew I should have changed host providers back in December when it was renewal time. That’s what I get for procrastinating.

Happy Holidays! I guess I just failed miserably at being holiday-generic, what with the Ho Ho part, huh?

Since I’ve also failed msierably at keeping up with my blog, I’m going to do a little shameless self-promotion — by coercing you into checking out the two latest Boomer Babe Web Marketing posts.

As you know, I started Boomer Babe Web Marketing just a few months ago with a group of great people. I finally twisted the arms of a couple of them and they gave in and write blog posts. And they’re really good! You can get a fabulous fondue recipe from Grace, and really great marketing hints from Margot. I’d encourage you to subscribe to that blog as there will be a lot of interesting and tasty variety. The Feedblitz link is in the right side of the Boomer Babe blog. Check it out:

Boomer Babe Web Marketing Blog

Trust me on this one. It’s worth the click.

And, no matter what flavor of holidays you prefer, I wish you a very happy season and a prosperous and healthy new year!!

When our son was little his favorite super hero was He-Man. Our miniature He-Man loved to run around the house with his plastic sword in the air yelling “I HAF Da POWAAAAAA!!!!!!!!! He thought he was pretty hot stuff.

I thought of him as I sat in the airport in London and realized that for the first time ever I had left home WITHOUT the power! I have a trusty power converter that has been in my “I can pack and get out the door in 1 hour” bag for years. But not this time. Somehow I had managed to leave it behind. I groaned as I remembered the smell of burning plastic in China when I plugged in a new power converter - to my laptop - and there was smoke and sparks! I’ve never again trusted any other power converter with my precious electronics than the one that was sitting on the shelf at home — 5,000 miles away.

I started the search in an airport luggage shop. SURELY in England they would have converters that would work with US electronics. But no, the shop girl was very clear “These are just plug changers. They are NOT current converters!” Uh-oh. If not in England, the chances of finding one in Spain were not good.

As soon as we landed I explained that my first priority was finding a power converter. My friends laughed; my typical first request is to get to the nearest tapas bar. Not this time. If I couldn’t find a power converter I was dead in the water.

We stopped in Alicante at two electrical stores (in Spain most types of consumer products are still sold in specialty shops). In the first store, the proprietor was calmly chatting with the only other customer as I impatiently tapped my foot (good American that I am). After 15 minutes I gave up and went back to the car. In the second shop they shrugged apologetically and told me that they only had the plug-in changer thing-y. No power converters.

Now I’m getting nervous. Maybe this was an even bigger screw-up than I realized. When we got back to the apartment I used my friend’s computer to do a quick search. I could order a converter from Amazon UK and pay for it in British pounds, which is now double the cost of American dollars — so about $100 — AND wait for at least a week for it to arrive. Or I could keep looking.

One friend called another who called another and we were directed to the best little electrical shop in Dénia. The shop owner nodded and assured me he had the solution. He handed me a heavy gizmo that looked like a piece off of a power station, and then an adaptor that goes with it. For a more $25 I walked away, totally freaked out that I was going to blow up my laptop with this Frankenstein contraption.

When we arrived at the apartment I went straight for the “office” and set everything up. I held my breath as I realized that — ta-da!! — the damn plug-in didn’t fit the plug-in in the apartment! My friend grinned, handed me a glass of wine, and disappeared to dig in her junk drawer. She returned with a Spain-to-Spain plug converter. Now I’m REALLY worried. How many pieces-parts does it take to replace my wonderful little travel converter? I’m practically hysterical.

I close my eyes and hand the plug to my husband. “You do it. I can’t bear to look.” So he did, and I waited for that nauseating smell. But nothing happened other than my laptop buzzing to life. I took a gulp of my wine and vowed to never let my little travel converter out of my sight again.

Ah, but that’s not the end of the story. I decided I needed to have a back-up converter, so I renewed my internet search. As I hunted I thought “You know, I wonder why so many shops sell plug changers instead of power converters — that’s awfully dangerous to the electronics of foreigners. Why would they sell those things?” Suddenly a little voice in the back of my head started giggling quietly. “You know what? You’re gonna feel REALLY STUPID if it turns out that those $2 plug-in changers are all you really need!”

“NOOOO!!! Shut up! That’s not possible! What about China?”

“But we’re not IN China! This is Europe. I think you need to check this out.”

OK, ok, so I checked it out. Five minutes of research on the internet revealed my worst fear / fondest hope. Almost ALL American electronics are capable of working on European voltage. All you really need is a stupid $2 plug changer. Just shoot me.

Whew. Getting to Spain proved to be quite an interesting adventure. The fares are high now, although they are normally much lower in the fall. I was so intent on going that I spent a ridiculous amount of time searching for airfares to save some money. Finally, by sheer luck, I found a fare that was $125 per person less than anything else. So what if you had to stay in London 9 hours? Saving $250 was worth it! That is, I thought it was worth it until things started to fall apart. Why is it that I have such a knack for learning things the hard way?

When we landed at London Gatwick airport I had the clever idea of finding another discount regional carrier that would pop us over to Spain and get us there before dinner. But British Air didn’t much like that idea. So instead we decided to hop the train and go and see the British coast. I had always heard about Brighton, but had never been there. So we grabbed our way-to-heavy carry-ons and headed out. We walked down to the beach and spent a very nice day at the rocky beach where my husband will tell you that I tried to poison him by ordering a seafood platter instead of the fish and chips that we had agreed upon, only to find out that one of the little nuggets that I gave him was a fried oyster — and he is deathly allergic to mollusks. I held my breath all afternoon, not wanting to confess my crime, and hoping that he wouldn’t get sick. By some miracle he didn’t. Maybe it was the Guinness.

After our little beach diversion we headed back to the airport to discover that our flight was 2 1/2 hours late. So we ordered up more Guinness (OK, I don’t drink much beer, but one of us enjoyed it… ) and pulled out our books and quickly fell asleep. When we finally arrived in Spain it was 3 a.m. But guess what? Somehow with a mere 11 1/2 hours between flights, the airline managed to lose our luggage. Oh well, it was so late that we didn’t dare call our friends to come and get us. So we took a taxi to a nearby hotel and dropped $100 for about 4 hours of sleep. All in all my “discount” airfare that saved $250 ended up costing us $210 for train tickets, lunch, a late night snack, taxi fare, and hotel. We did enjoy our afternoon in Brighton, but we could have been walking on the SANDY beach in Spain with friends. We’ve made a pact. No more midnight flights. No more discount fares.

I can’t believe how long it’s been since I’ve written. But I have a good excuse. Well, I have an excuse. I’m not sure how GOOD it is.

About 3 months ago I realized that I was in a position to launch a new company that I had been dreaming about for several months. I started a small web marketing company that has been dubbed Boomer Babe Web Marketing. If you check us out, you’ll see that it is a collaboration with 5 other people (all but 1 are women) that I have come to know, respect, and trust. I’m very excited about this new venture and happy to report that we have already booked 4 projects, which are in development.

During the past 2 months, growing my existing business consumed much of my time, and getting Boomer Babe up and running took up the rest of the hours in my work week. All in all, I neglected my posts on this blog. BUT, before you wonder if I’m remembering to take care of myself, the answer is, “Yes!” I neglected this blog, but I didn’t neglect myself or my family.

And now I’m in a bit of a quandry. Should I continue this blog? Or just focus on blogging on the Boomer Babe site? My teammates at BBWM have volunteered to help write that blog, so maybe I’ll have time and material for both.

And my last news is that I leave in exactly 8 days to return to Spain. This time I have 2 months to explore some new areas of both work and leisure. Based on past experience, I know I’ll have stories to share. So please let me know if you have any specific areas of interest that have to do with working virtually — and internationally. I’m happy to share anything that I can.

I’m one of those people who drives everybody else nuts trying to figure out every possible scenario. Travel is no exception. What if my computer dies? What if the Internet connection doesn’t work? What if I want paella but my friends want fish? Oh, sorry, it’s always about the food, you know….

To prepare for a trip, I mentally walk through every potential obstacle I can imagine. I know where and how I can buy a new laptop if the worst happens — if I lose it (the computer, the computer!) or it dies completely. To prepare for a loss of data, I have two really important resources; an online backup service and a portable external hard drive.

There are many choices for online backups, and I highly recommend that you find one AND USE IT! Some are quite expensive, some have more bells and whistles. My choice is Mozy, a service that is free for 2Gb of storage, but I pay $4.95 per month so that I can backup all of my data. The advantages of online backup are many, not the least of which is that you can access and restore your data from anywhere that you can access the Internet. Then there are the redundant servers that they use to ensure that your backups are always there. One note, though: online backup services are NOT a place to store and share files. You cannot browse the files and simply choose which one to download. It is meant for restore purposes, and it does that job very well.

Since I’m paranoid and don’t ever want to have to explain to a client: “Hello, Wanda? You know your database that has 5,000 contacts and all their sales data? Well, my computer went down….” No thank you. So in addition to backing up data, I use an external, portable hard drive when I travel. After much research and a heart-to-heart with my tech guy, I settled on the LaCie Mobile Drive that can store 160Gb, and is very small and light. Weight becomes a significant factor after you’ve been stuck in 5 airports in 1 day. No exaggeration.

For me, the thought of losing my computer and everything on it is my worst nightmare. The idea of having my data backed up is comforting, but if my computer dies, I don’t want to reinstall the operating system, all the software, and all of my settings. It’s incredibly time consuming. There is an advantage to starting all over with software, which is the rough equivalent of cleaning out the garage. But I don’t have time. So I use Norton Ghost to clone my entire system. It surprises me that more technical people don’t share this little tidbit with their clients. The difference? My computer dies, or I buy a new one. Option A: Install all my software, re-set all my settings (as much as I can remember), then restore all the data. Option B with cloning software: Install cloning software, click restore, and walk away. Come back to a computer that is exactly like my old one. For me, it’s a no-brainer. Ghost is $69.99, and for that price I can save hours of time and frustration.

Remember, no amount of software or hardware for backups will help you if you don’t use it religiously!!!!

Join us next time when we explore the exciting world of… never mind. Next time we’ll talk about food.

OK, I’m trying to get my head back around work and OFF of babies, but it’s not an easy task.

For me, one of the most challenging aspects of working from another country is figuring out the phone situation. I wanted to be sure that my clients had access to me, the same as they would if I were in my own office in the US, and at no additional cost to them. Before I left on my inaugural voyage of ProBiz Partners de España, I did extensive research to find out about the most cost-effective and least-difficult ways to stay in phone contact with the US.

I tried Vonage V-phone and Skype but both turned out to be worse-than-terrible connections. I think it had to do with being in a smaller town where the Internet connection wasn’t quite as fast as advertised. Vonage and Skype turned out to be unacceptable options, although if I were going to a larger city, I would give them a try again. Both offer options of having a “real” phone number that people can use to call you, at no cost to them, but the downside is that you have to be connected to your computer to receive the calls.

After trying and failing at several different things, I decided to simply accept phone calls on my cell phone (which I use as my primary business number), and if a client needed to have a longer conversation they were completely OK with me calling them back, using my MCI Global phone card, or my PINGO calling card. The good news is that my clients knew that they could call me during regular business hours, at the normal number they were accustomed to using. The bad news is that I had to pay $.99/min for incoming calls. Actually it wasn’t bad at all because my clients rarely call me without arranging it in advance, so I was able to schedule a time for me to call them, which helped me control the cost.

MCI is by far the better option of the 2 calling cards that I have. I always get a stable, very clear connection with MCI, and the rates are reasonable — $.07/min either from or to the US. PINGO is my choice for long international conversations, with a rate of $.02/min to call to Spain (for land lines — note that calling cell phones in Europe has a steep surcharge) and $.05/min to call from Spain to the US. Unfortunately, PINGO sometimes has poor connections, so I typically don’t rely on it for business calls.

I also researched back-up options to connect to the Internet in case the connection in my apartment should go down (which is always a distinct possibility). One of the coolest tech toys I’ve found in a long time is my Blackberry Pearl, which I use with my T-Mobile cell phone account. T-Mobile provides the best international options for me, and the Pearl gives me access to the Internet, email, a built-in MP3 player, and a camera. As I type this post, I am at my favorite bookstore / coffee shop, with my Pearl tethered to my laptop, to provide me with a high speed Internet connection. I love the fact that I can get Internet service anywhere that I have phone reception. The speed is acceptable, although not the same as in my office. One precaution here, though. Using a device like the Pearl as an Internet connection in another country redefines expensive. Don’t try it unless you know exactly what you’re paying for. T-Mobile does provide a Hot Spot plan that allows you to pay a monthly fee to access their Hot Spots, which are all over Europe and many other countries. That might prove to be a good back-up plan, although I was lucky and my Internet connection in the apartment was stable for the entire trip.

I completely expect that as things evolve there will be less-expensive, and more widely available options for both international phone calls and Internet access. If you’ve heard of anything exciting and new, please let me know. I have to keep up my reputation as having the coolest tech tools.

When the topic of travel comes up, there is alway someone who brings up the issues of jet lag and surviving the cramped quarters of hours and hours flying in the cheap seats. I’m also frequently asked how I can work effectively outside of my home office. So I’ll share a few of the tips and tricks that I use when I work from the land of far, far away.

The flight to Europe doesn’t look so bad when you see that there are non-stop flights from Denver to London that only take about 8 hours. I can do that. Um… but London isn’t where I’m going. By the time my head hits the pillow in Dénia I have sometimes been in transit for as long as 36 hours. That´s because things happen like bad weather, broken airplanes, and lost luggage.

The things I do to avoid jet lag are very easy. I always ask for a window seat so that I can see where I´m going but, more importantly, because I can rest my head against the plane and I sleep better. I use one of those funky neck pillows that cost about $5, it folds up nice and neat, and it helps me avoid neck cramps. I avoid alcohol (shocking, I know…. ), and I try to eat light during the flight, focusing on fruits and veggies. The food usually sucks anyway, depending on the airline, so I just think of it as saving up for a great meal when I arrive.

The two most important bits are to sleep as much as possible and to walk around and stretch at least twice during the longer flights. This makes a world of difference.

As for the tools that I love to travel with — I always need my iPod, my noise-canceling headphones, and a good book. The thing that annoys the h$!! out of me with the iPod is that the addition of that clever little “i” in front of the name of anything adds about 50% to the price. I have spent an embarrassing amount of time searching for accessories for my iPod that were good and affordable. The best of the best is my iLuv i901 noise canceling headphones. I’ve always had trouble hearing music on airplanes because of the roar of the engines. Purely by accident I found the iLuv headphones that not only have good sound, but fold into a nice tight little package, and are a fraction of the cost of other similar headphones.

Another iPod accessory that I wanted was a simple case that would securely hold my iPod so that I didn’t have to worry about dropping it or losing it. Again, the prices were unbelievable. $20 for a little chunk of rubber that didn’t even have a strap with it. Love that little “i.” I finally came across a set of 3 silicon cases that fit the iPod snugly and it comes with a neck strap. $9.95 for the set. Sold.

My travel kit:

The last thing that I carry with me at all times — even during the flight — is my small digital camera. I love my Nikon digital SLR, but it’s just too big. I finally gave in and purchased a small Canon that does an amazing job, especially in low light, and it is small enough to tuck into my purse for unexpected photo ops.

With these few tools I can endure even the toughest airport delays and still arrive at my destination ready to go. I may not have any clean underwear, but at least I’m not sleepy!

If you have some tools and tricks to share, I’d love to hear about them. Please leave a comment and tell us how you travel.

We all know that we are creatures of habit. Most of us look for ways to order our days and create patterns or rhythms that are comfortable for us. When I got my first 3 clients, all in the same month, my daily rhythm was shot to pieces. I struggled to find a way to put in billable time and stop wasting time. I finally figured out a pretty good system that works for me, but then the time came to take the show on the road. I quickly realized that the biggest challenge in working away from my office was finding the right rhythm that would meet all of the needs of my business and my personal life.

I had worked long and hard to create my business in a way that I could take it with me to Spain. I planned very carefully for this first trip, even going so far as to keep it short so that if anything went terribly wrong I wouldn’t be away from my clients (meaning dependable, familiar technology) for too long. I made sure that I had all the backup technology I would need and by the time I left home I was pretty sure that I had things well in hand. The one thing I didn’t anticipate was that I would have to find an entirely new rhythm when I arrived in my adopted country.

The first week was hard. I wanted to go out with my friends and walk on the beach and generally just enjoy being here. I wanted to be on vacation. I didn’t want to think about work. The weather was my unexpected ally. The unusually cool and rainy weather helped me stay inside and focus on what I needed to get done.

I sat down with my friends and we worked out a schedule. I would work during the early morning hours when people here are still sleeping, and in that way I could deliver work to my clients before they started their days. Then I would take a break midday to enjoy the great food and hopefully spend some time at the beach and at the markets. Later in the evening I planned to come back to my desk where I would be in easy phone contact with my clients and I could respond to any emails they had sent, as well as continue the projects I’ve been working on. Of course, the first day of the new schedule, my friends begged me to go to a small town nearby to go shopping, eat out, and go to a movie. They had vacation time and I didn’t. So much for finding my rhythm.

Finally, almost 10 days after arriving here I woke up, dove into a quick shower, and hid in my room with my computer. I was still having a hard time focusing. I’d find the silliest little things to pull me off task. I realized that maybe my new rhythm needed some rhythm. I love listening to music all the time. I could totally live without a television, but music is essential. So I grabbed my headphones, turned on iTunes, and suddenly things began to fall in place. I became super productive and focused. All the distractions were easy to put aside. I learned how to gently say “no” to my friends and to avoid my email inbox.

I knew in the back of my mind that although I had planned carefully, I can never anticipate absolutely everything. I realized that my biggest challenge turned out to have nothing to do with Internet connections or telephones or client files. Thanks to a little additional planning and some great music, I’ve found the rhythm of my work in Spain.

If you have special tricks or tools that you use to help you juggle multiple priorities and balance work with your personal life, please share them with me. There’s still a lot to learn.