Jim Blasingame – The Small Business Advocate

Many of our clients, vendors and contacts are business owners themselves – which is one of the aspects of this job that I enjoy the most. Through our service, we are exposed to so many industries, work with many entrepreneurial people, and learn about the ins and outs of their businesses. Sharing resources with each other is a great benefit of the relationships I’ve built with other like-minded business owners.

Recently, I was interviewed by Jim Blasingame on The Small Business Advocate radio show for the second time. Jim has been very supportive of the Fini Concierge concept but also of our perspective on doing business in this climate.

Check out his website, which is full of useful resources for small business owners: The Small Business Advocate

And you can listen to both of my radio interviews at this link: Chantal Boxer with Jim Blasingame

Many thanks to Jim and his staff for having me on his show and giving me an opportunity to share a bit about our story.

Valuing Time and Money

These days it’s a daily question – “how’s your business surviving ?” My answer is always the same – we’re doing really well. Now that’s not to say that we haven’t seen things change in the past few months but as a business we’re feeling really positive about our current position and our future. We’ve retained all of our clients and have signed up many new ones that are using us consistently as well. We are even opening a second office in the Spring which means adding an additional staff person and many new opportunities. Of course, like many other companies, we’ve had a few clients that are using us less frequently than they have in the past, but that is to be expected. Overall, morale is good . We are enjoying our work because in many instances its valued even more by our clients because they are working longer hours and have more stress and less time to focus on their personal lives.
People often think that a person must value either their time or their money – but we offer people the opportunity to do both. Our flexible model allows our clients to utilize our support when needed and budget the amount of money they allocate to our services accordingly. We’re here to help them regardless of whether they use us one hour a month or 15 hours a week. Good economy or not, our business model is the same – we offer personal assistance to people on an as needed basis to make their lives simplified.

Blending part 2

I recently posted about the idea of blending life and work as opposed to trying to balance them. Offline I had some interesting discussions about people’s thoughts in response to this idea. One friend pointed out that it’s different for a business owner to live a blended life, as they have a greater connection and usually a greater reward from the business. That, of course, business owners would live and breath by the success of their business because it’s “their baby”.

In my prior post, I wasn’t trying to advocate for “24/7 workaholism” nor was I meaning to imply that people should not be focused on their families, friends or themselves and put work completely aside at times. All are important to living a healthy lifestyle, being rejuvenated and exploring all aspects of life. Instead I was advocating the idea of viewing yourself as a person who has a family and friends, hobbies and a career, someone connected to many different communities…that the various aspects of your life do not have to be separate from each other and specifically from work. That at times you’ll spend more time at work than in other areas of your life and at other times you’ll work less so that you can volunteer your time for your child’s school project or to take time off to care for a friend in need. The balance of where your energy and focus lies will shift. But during all of these activities you are learning, connecting and doing things that inevitably impact other areas of your life.

At the Boston Pink Magazine Conference in October, Marilyn Carlson Nelson of Carlson Cos, reflected upon all of the life goals she has had and achieved. She noted that early on she knew that she could have it all and do it all…but that she just couldn’t do it all and have it all at the same time.

Seven Cycles

So many people ask us what the strangest thing we were ever asked to do is. Unfortunately, we don’t have too many juicy, sensational stories for them (and we probably wouldn’t tell you even if we did!) but what has continued to be exciting are the projects that we find ourselves working on that we would have never guessed that we would have been called upon for when we founded Fini Concierge. Every once in a while I plan on highlighting such a project – to give you more of a flavor of what we’re doing everyday at Fini!

One such project is my ongoing involvement in the recruiting efforts of Seven Cycles. Seven Cycles is the largest exclusively custom bike frame builder in the world, headquartered right here in Watertown. We had the opportunity to start working with Rob Vandermark, CEO and Founder of Seven Cycles, 3 years ago, helping him primarily with personal projects. In the spring of 2007 he presented us with a challenge – help him with the recruitment of an executive administrative assistant. Amazingly, Rob had worked for over 8 years as the CEO of Seven Cycles without any admin support partly because he had been so disheartened with candidates during past searches with and without the help of professional recruiters. Rob trusted us with this project because we had developed such a strong working relationship with him and knew his working style. In an effort to get Rob the help he needed right away, we had one of our team members, Marissa, work part time at Seven to help pave the transition for the new full time assistant. It took us several months but we were successful in helping to find the right match for Rob – and we’re so happy to say that she is still working with Rob – because it makes Rob’s life easier but also because Denise is so awesome to work with!

So most people would get why Rob would ask for our assistance on helping him hire an executive admin, but most people wouldn’t imagine why Rob would have continued to ask for our help to fill other positions at Seven. I’m first to admit that I’m not a regular on a bike (although inspired by all of my time at Seven I did ride 30 miles for the MS Ride in NYC two years ago!) and didn’t have much knowledge of the frame building industry. But I’ve learned a lot and hiring goes way beyond technical knowledge. Although we certainly are just a small part of the team and don’t take credit for the successful hires they’ve had over the last 18 months, our role is to help them manage and facilitate the process…and as any of you who do your own hiring know, it can certainly be a frustrating and long process!

Even more valuable than the recruiting lessons I’ve learned while a member of Seven’s recruitment team, I’ve been inspired by Seven Cycles and the people who work there. As is evidenced by vast media coverage and positive reviews of its bikes, Seven Cycles is synonymous with unparalleled quality, precision workmanship, design innovation and handcrafted customization. All immensely impressive. What continues to impress me is the dedication that the Seven team has to the mission of Seven -- crafting each bike to meet the needs of its’ rider with uncompromising service. I feel honored to work as part of their team and especially to have such close dealings with Rob, whose knowledge, passion and devotion to his business is unrivaled…and who always looks for the opportunity to share his expertise with others.

So although Seven hires me to help them, often days I wonder if it’s me who’s making out on this one as I continue to learn a great deal from them.

Interested in working at Seven Cycles? Check out: http://www.sevencycles.com/career/index.php.

The Holidays have arrived!

I can tell you that the holidays have officially arrived. How do I know? In addition to the Christmas music playing non-stop on a couple of radio stations, the decorated stores and the barrage of toy commercials on the TV, I’ve spent several hours this week wrapping gifts for one client and sending them to her family overseas.

This is one of my favorite times of year. Despite the arrival of the cold weather, I enjoy all the festivities that happen between Thanksgiving and the New Year. At Fini, it’s our busiest season as we help clients with all aspects of the holidays from gift shopping and wrapping to decorating and planning parties, plus last minute holiday travel.

It’s also a time for reflection. The year has gone by so fast and there are less than six weeks left before 2009! I’m not so committed to the idea of New Year’s Resolutions, but every year I do set goals and think about where I’d like to be at the end of that year, both professionally and personally. With only a few weeks left, I better get working on some of them!

Before you get swept up in the festivities of the season, take some time to think about how you want to finish off 2008…and start towards a wonderful 2009.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Blending

I had the opportunity to attend the 4th Annual Pink Magazine Conference on October 14th. Panelists included Jody Adams, Rialto Restaurant and Bar, Irene Chang Britt, Campbell USA, Julie Gilbert, Best Buy and Marilyn Carlson Nelson, Carlson Cos. The panel focused on what made each of these women so successful and the lessons learned along each of their journeys. I took away many interesting lessons from the discussion, more of which I will share in future posts. I think that their wisdom is applicable to men and women and to people in all stages of their careers.

The inevitable question that always seems to be asked when professionally successful women are being interviewed is the whole issue of work life balance and how they manage to do both.

Blend and not balance was the way that Irene Chang Britt described her solution to answering the demands of work and family. Instead of trying to keep them separate, which for many of us (me included, especially when your husband is also your business partner!) is impossible. She gave examples of how she made choices to integrate the two, looking at all of it as her LIFE, not squeezing each activity into the work or personal category. She talked about how on many an occasion she took her daughter to work with her, utilizing the opportunity to talk with her about business and her role. People could view this as putting her work before her time with her daughter. But as a result her daughter has grown up with an amazing entrepreneurial spirit which has manifested itself into organizing her young peers into fundraising efforts to help the people in Darfur.

The idea of blending is in conflict with how many of us have worked and lived. There’s guilt about always “being connected” or keeping the Blackberry on the bedside table. Yet in reality the two are usually not separate. We form relationships and partnerships that transcend both the work and personal aspects of our lives, we meet business contacts at social events and through lessons learned at work become better friends, partners and parents.

Blending is a more flexible way to view life and truly more realistic. Most of us can’t turn off our thoughts about work just because we’ve left the office nor can we avoid personal aspects of our lives needing attention during our work day. Viewing life as a blend lets each of us off the hook from always worrying about which side of the scale we’re on.

Cleaning out your closets

It happens a couple of times a year – the need to clean out your closets and purge all of that “stuff” you’ve been keeping for who knows why. The inspiration hit me this past Saturday and I spent the entire day going through old clothes, desk drawers and my food pantry. About half way through with the closets, my home in a complete state of disarray, I paused, mystified as to why I started this project in the first place. I came close to quitting, but could barely find enough floor space to walk to the door so kept at it.

At the end of the day, I felt a sense of accomplishment and our home definitely felt “lighter.” Seeing all of our unwanted stuff that we don’t use always makes me feel glad that I can pass it along to someone who could really use my clothes or home items more than me. After all, having it under my bed does no good. I happily dropped off six bags at Goodwill on Monday morning.

The helping hand of Fini Concierge is often the “inspiration” (if you can call it that!) that our clients need. Some of our clients ask us to go through closets or basements with them and others have us weed through, sort and organize their stuff so that they can then make the decision to keep or pass items along to someone else or the junk pile. One of the steps that is most helpful to people is our coordination of the “getting rid phase.” It could be picking up items for donation to local charities – home items, construction related leftovers, clothes, or arranging for a junk removal service or charity organization to come and pick up certain items.

Because we can all relate to having a couple of bags of donations sitting in our spare room for months -- never making it out the door.