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A recent discussion via the MyLinkedInPowerForum asked why US members don’t include their country code in their phone numbers. By that we mean, adding the country code, +1. There are a lot of members on this list, from many different countries.

A discussion ensued which indicated it hadn’t occurred to many in the US to do that, some saying they never call outside of their country so they hadn’t thought about those who call in.

This prompted me to add other frustrations I experience with respect to people not indicating their location for determining time differences or using acronyms that mean little outside of their country. By this I mean things like CST, MDT, PST, EDT, and so on if they’re listing an event for people to attend.

Recently I received a phone call at 2am from someone in another country. Unfortunately their accent made it difficult to understand the number they were giving, they didn’t tell me what country they were calling from (or if they did, I didn’t understand it) and I had no idea whether I had the right number because I had no country code to add. The call went unreturned and these people probably think I was rude and disinterested. They haven’t followed up.

I decided to make some changes at my end. My voicemail message now states that my timezone is +10GMT so that callers from outside of my country understand why I haven’t answered their call during their daytime.

I’ve added a date and timestamp to my website so that visitors can see what time it is right now where I am.

I’ve always added +61 to my phone and fax numbers so that international callers know exactly what to dial.

I’ve added Melbourne, Victoria, Australia for those who need to have a good idea of where I am. Listing my own suburb, and an abbreviated form of my state won’t help those who aren’t in the know.

So, here is my check list for service based businesses with websites that are designed to attract international business. This doesn’t necessarily mean all websites should have this but if you are operating internationally and it’s reasonable to expect a phone call from overseas now and then, this would be good to do.

1. On phone and fax numbers include your country code.
2. Include your state in full with postcode/zipcode.
3. If running an event that requires attendees to dial in or login at a particular time, don’t just put a timezone abbreviation such as EST but include your nearest major city and state. If possible add a link to a meeting planner to assist visitors in working out the time differences.
4. Consider adding a timestamp as I have done, if you provide a service based business for international clients.

Put yourself in your visitor’s shoes and wonder just how much ‘local’ knowledge they might have if they live outside your country. And then adjust your website or webpage to accommodate them.

After all, we all know that this is a common sight in Australia, don’t we?

Oh, and by the way, I heard the other day that some outside of Australia think the kookaburra is a myth! I assure you it isn’t.

Tags: Business Operations, Networking for Business by Kathie Thomas
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I didn’t know what I was missing otherwise I would have done this ages ago.

I really could not picture in my head how RSS feeds worked (I know, I know, I’m into all this techy stuff and didn’t get that!) and didn’t want to have to remember to go to some webpage regularly to check to see if people had updated their blogs. I mean, that’s as bad as having to remember to visit their blogs anyway. That’s why I’ve always been in favour of email subscriptions and using Feedburner for that. Besides, it’s nice being able to see the number of subscribers too from the blogger’s side of things.

Anyway, I finally decided to start exploring this RSS thing as so many other bloggers kept referring to it and after posting a question at LinkedIn Answers and also at Aussie Blogger’s forum to find out about different readers I decided to give Google Reader a go.

Why? Because the percentage of people ‘voting’ for it was way above the other suggestions and I also already had a Google account (who doesn’t?). Plus some of the readers mean having to install software on your computer but with a reader like Google Reader, you can literally log into it from any computer anywhere - it doesn’t have to travel with me. So, I was sold!

Anyway, after seeing what I could do with it, I was hooked. I mean I started off with just a couple of blogs but now have 30 on the list. I’ve heard of some with over 100. I know my number will grow too - it’s early days yet…

I love that I can leave my browser open all day and see in the Google Reader tab (I use Firefox) that there are new posts waiting to be read as a number in brackets appear. The tempation to go and read is something I have to learn to control but it means when I want a break from my work or read something over a cuppa, I can go to my reader to do that. Also first thing in the morning and last thing at night I can catch up with reading.

I now can keep up with things as they happen and not learn about them much later on. Whilst I was using Google Alert, that only works for phrases and keywords I’ve registered and not everything else, and I wasn’t subscribed to lots of blogs as I get heaps of email now and just hadn’t wanted to increase it further.

Of those blogs I was subscribed to by email I now have on the Reader and I know as soon as something has been published so get to read it before the email subscription even goes out. It also means I’m inclined to comment more often and I have already noticed a distinct rise in the number of visits to my own blogs directly from some of those blogs, so it’s working!

As an aside, I love that Firefox will allow you to save multiple pages for your home page, so now Google Reader is one of my home pages and it automatically opens to it whenever I start up or restart my computer.

Tags: Blogging by Kathie Thomas
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I learnt on Des Walsh’s blog today that Darren Rowse has unofficially called April 14th (today) Blogger Appreciation Day.

The idea is to encourage everyone to say ‘thank you’ or to encourage bloggers for the effort they put into what they do. Darren was saying he’d received 3 unsolicited emails thanking him and he’d realised just how much some bloggers just don’t get shown appreciation so he thought declaring today Blogger Appreciation Day might be good to make people to think beyond just reading a post, but actually letting the bloggers know how much they appreciated it. This can be done via comments, emails or even posting on your own blog and linking back.

Des took it further by mentioning three people who have inspired his blog walk and I want to do the same.

First of all is my client, Lorraine Pirihi of The Office Organiser. I’ve mentioned her briefly in previous posts but not in detail, of how she was responsible for me travelling this journey. So thank you, Lorraine.

Second is Des Walsh, who via one of his blogs, actually made me sit up and take notice of what LinkedIn is all about.  Consequently I’ve become a very active networker via that medium - it was definitely worth taking another look.

The third is Alister Cameron who has been very helpful with advice via email and also via his blog.  Making contact with him was worth it.

Now, do you have bloggers you would like to show appreciation to?

Tags: Blogging by Kathie Thomas
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The week of 24th March marked a number of milestones for me. 14 years in business, I reached the 1,000 mark in LinkedIn connections (thanks Mike) and had published my 300th post on my VA blog.

Those of you who read my VA blog will know I had a week of giveaways for new subscribers to the blog and it produced a whole lot of interest and fun.

What have I learnt in those 14 years? Lots - like don’t hold back on an idea but surge forward with it and action it if you believe in it. I did and ended up pioneering a new industry in my country even though I didn’t know that’s what I was doing at the time. Hindsight is such a great thing, isn’t it?

Networking is another valuable thing I’ve learnt. You never know who is going to be able to lead you to whom or where so it’s important to treat everyone as you would like to be treated yourself. You never know when you might need those contacts. I’ve been able to introduce my daughters to some interesting people for their own life plans as a result of being in the right place at the right time - so leaving the office and actually going out and meeting people is a good idea.

Be prepared to learn new skills and don’t knock back opportunities. Much of what I do today for clients is as a result of saying ‘yes’ when a client asked me to explore something on their behalf. Otherwise I’d still be doing just typing and data entry and nothing else.

Finally, have fun. If you’re not enjoying what you’re doing on a daily basis, then perhaps you need to reassess what’s happening in your life. If it’s for the short-term and you have a definite goal in mind, then that’s fine. But if it’s long-term and you have no goals, then something is adrift - time to find out what and why.

Tags: Business Operations, Blogging by Kathie Thomas
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I get lots of people saying they don’t know how to use LinkedIn but know I’m a member so they ask to connect with me, or agree to join but don’t know how to proceed. I wrote the message below and sent it by email to many to help them on their way, but thought I should really share it here for all.

Granted, LinkedIn has changed how the home page looks now but the components are still the same, so the information below should help you move in the right direction and get some value out of your membership.

______________________________________

There are many components to LinkedIn and I’m not going to try and cover it all in one email but just want to give you an outline this time round.

When you log into LinkedIn you will see the above on your login page.

First of all Account & Settings is where you can set various items for your account - if you use more than one email address during your workday, then I suggest you list all your email addresses so that if someone sends you an invite via any of them, you will receive it into this account and not accidentally set up a second account - something I see a number of people doing and having challenges with.

There are 4 areas here you will probably use more than the others and they are:

1. Home (to view your updates and inbox and total number of connections),
2. My Profile (which you should get set up as soon as possible if you haven’t already),
3. My Contacts (where you will see an alphabetical list of all your first level contacts)
4. and the one that I’ve found most beneficial for networking - Answers.

Answers is worth checking out. You can read through Questions that people have placed and read the answers of others. Here you get to learn who has experience and knowledge in various areas and go and view their profiles. As you do so you’ll probably get more ideas for adding to your profile. If you know the answer to a question asked, don’t be shy - go ahead and give an answer. If your answer is listed as ‘good’ or ‘best’ you will start to see that in your Answers stats (My Q&A). Once you’ve gotten a ‘best’ answer you will then go on the Experts list - these are also worth checking out.

You are allowed to ask 10 questions a month and can ask questions about almost anything. But do have a look at the others first because sometimes the same questions are asked over and over again, mainly about how LinkedIn works. But that is only one category and there are many others relating to all sorts of things such as Technology, Staffing, Administration and so on.

Do be careful not to place something in Answers that comes across as blatant advertising. I did post something that was intended to be informative and to give others an opportunity in relation to a competition and it was flagged as an advertisement and closed. I wasn’t aware of this till I was checking my stats and wondered what had happened to that question. So I’m learning to be careful how I word things so that I’m not viewed as blatantly advertising something. Too many of these and you get your Q&A privileges suspended by Customer Service.

Be aware too, when you are sending invitations to people to connect with them, it is important you introduce yourself and explain why you want to connect - particularly with people who might not know you very well (but are on your database) or people you’ve seen at LinkedIn and want to get to know better. If they say they don’t know you and you get 5 of these, then your invitations are suspended for a period of time, so it is taken seriously.

Finally, if you want to get true networking value out of LinkedIn, then make sure you join some of the chat forums associated with members there. LinkedIn does not have an actual chat forum, nor the facility for sending emails to members so many members host forums via Yahoogroups and Google groups, amongst other mediums. You can check some of them out at my profile at http://www.linkedin.com/in/kathiethomas or simply shoot me an email and I’ll send you addresses to those I find most particularly beneficial.

Tags: LinkedIn, Productivity Tips by Kathie Thomas
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