In Business, People Lie

Who do you believe? Yourself.

People will protect themselves and their own assets before any one else - they will harm you to save themselves.

You can hire whomever you like. Work with whomever you like and work for whomever you like.
When you are the owner you are the one that has to make those decisions.

You can prepare however you like to begin your business, but you will never be prepared for the people that you come in to contact with.

Here are my top 10 things I have learned in the last year of business and what to watch out for:

1. If someone is too willing to help you - keep them at arm's length
2. Keep business as business and friendship as friendship - no mater who you are - it won't work
3. Make you own decisions about your business - appreciate others advice however you are the final say
4. Do not give control of your domain names, email or website to any programmer or hosting company - you can host without losing any control
5. Know the difference between a project lunch and a project date
6. Know what is going on in your business - never say "oh so and so did that or knows that" You are the owner you need to know where money is going, what is happening, and what people are doing
7. Quickest way to losing a friend is money - quickest way to lose a business deal is being a liar
8. If you trust someone to handle your SEO know what they doing, what your rankings are - never trust a competitor to do your SEO they will sabotage you.
9. Pay your people as promised, take care of your sub-consultants - never break that bond
10. The truth will come out, who would people rather hear it from - you or the internet?

"Truth is a tenacious battler, eventually it will come out." -Unknown

Take care of yourself and your business. People are counting on you, it's your fault when things go wrong. You have the best interest of your company in mind - and no one else, even if they are getting paid, will.

Take care,
Angelina Gonzales
Phoenix Graphic Designer

Quote of the Week

"If you have chosen self employment as a means of expressing your purpose, your business will fundamentally reflect you. That is, your business will mirror your strengths, deficiencies, challenges and beliefs, among the rest. In that light,investing in your personal development is the best way to give your business a boost."

~Lynn Scheurell


Angelina Gonzales
Phoenix AZ Graphic Designer

Google Apps

Let me just start by saying how GREAT Google apps is!

I recently made the switch from a regular email hosted on a regular server to the almighty powerful Google. My email isn't your typical "gmail" or any other generic address @ it coincides with my web URL nthreeq.com. Isn't that great?! Now I can access my email anywhere from any computer.

With Google email you have all of your emails, which will also download to your Outlook or Entourage and whether you send through Outlook or Google it shows up on both. You can also be logged in from multiple computers - which helps us graphic artists when we work on both MAC's and PC's at the same time.

What a time saver! It also can do videos, documents and has a calendar - which will also sync right up to your Outlook calendar, iCal or Entourage calendar.

Next greatest feature?! Back up and the power of the Google servers. If your computer crashes - your email is safe backed up and stored within Google. And think about this - what are the odds of your hosting company's servers to go down? Or get hacked? Pretty good. Now, what about this. What are the chances that Google is going to go down or get hacked? I take the bet to be safe with Google.

Another feature?! Unless you need crazy space - like a graphic designer in Phoenix, i.e. me - it's free. And if you want crazy space - um $50 a year. And if you are a non-profit like many of my clients - extra features!

Best of all? Security. My Google email actually tells me how many computers I have logged in and from which IP addresses it is logged in from. So know your IP address and how many computers are logged in. Don't recognize the IP - it's not yours? Your in the bathtub and a friend calls you and says hey - I thought you are in the bath why are you logged on? Quickly, shut all IP addresses out and go in to security mode.

That'll teach anyone to get in to your personal email - besides - isn't there a law about accessing someone's mail without permission or consent? I think there is.

So, Google Apps - all the way! Contact me today if you have any questions - it's the next greatest thing out there! Need a computer backup solution for all your files? I have found one of those too! Contact me to find out more!

Take care,
Angelina
NThreeQ Media, LLC
Phoenix AZ Graphic Designer