President David Bullard pulled off a quick turn of business cards for me even though one of his machines went down temporarily. Very important to me with multiple trade, speaking, and travel engagements in June! Good price, good service, in business since 1944. What more do you need? lazareprinting.com

Just watched this video with Jim Coudal of Coudal Partners. I find their business really interesting. Sort of a “by the seat of our pants” philosophy. Watch the three things that they use to decide if they’ll take on a new client.

I’ve been using Survey Monkey a lot lately to check the pulse of my ChronicBabes, and it’s terrific - if you keep your surveys short and sweet, you can use a free account and get wonderful feedback. I include lots of questions that have comment spaces, because my readers are very opinionated and happy to offer lots of tips and suggestions for articles.

Another benefit of surveys is that readers feel involved in the process, part of a community. If I can get 100 women to respond in a week to a short survey, and most of them give long responses, then they must enjoy the surveys. And I get fantastic information I can use in developing content and future products for them.

So how about you? Are surveys your thing? I’m curious to know if you use them, what you expect to get from them, and what service you use. Do you publish your results? Do you use responses in your marketing or project development? Fill me in!

I’m considering employing an intern for a brief period this summer, and I’m curious to hear what other folks do to prepare for - and work with - an intern. Here are some of the things I’ve got on today’s to-do list:

• Create a brief overview of my business and my goals for the coming weeks, and put it into bigger perspective as well - the 1-year, 3-year and 5-year plan.
• Decide on a work schedule. Will s/he work 9-5, or put in a minimum number of hours per day? How flexible do I feel like being?
• Build a list of potential tasks an intern could do with some guidance from me.
• Build a list of potential tasks an intern could do without my observation.
• Provide an overview of the working conditions, i.e. - I work for myself, so you’ll likely be sitting on my couch, and sometimes working on the other side of my desk when I’m at my part-time rental office, or even at a cafe.
• Look into insurance for my intern; should I consider having coverage?
• Create a measurement system. How will I know if s/he is doing well? How will I convey that to the intern?
• Find out if my potential intern will want an exit interview, reference, etc. once s/he is done, i.e. something s/he can give to a teacher or potential employer.

That’s what I’ve got on the brain so far. I would really LOVE to hear from other folks about how they handle interns. Please comment here, and feel free to give me a call, too. Thanks!

This across the Benevich desk…a fr*e grant workshop by Yoki Songmaker via ayokisongmaker@aol.com. The deets from Yoki:

Saturday June 7th 2008
At True Vine Church 400 E 111th St 60628
Doors Open At 9am Begins At 10am to 12noon
Addmission Free
Free Food

Grants for Artist Churches Non-Profits
Scholarships For Students
How to start a business
Mortgage Education
Credit Restoration

Barbara Weltman talked about current business trends in one of her recent newsletters. I thought it was useful for those of us looking to target new or more lucrative industries. I think we’re all aware of the “green” trend, but I thought it was interesting to note that the pet industry is also booming (which isn’t surprising if you’ve spent any time in a PetSmart store!)