I recently had an experience with an ergonomics professional. To be frank, I wasn’t all that impressed. Let me tell you that she did introduce herself properly (a handshake, warm smile and good solid body language) Why do I pick on body language with an ergonomist? Because she’s an ergonomist and she is an advertisement of her own craft, wouldn’t you think? O.K. lets find out what happened next.

We sat down and the ergonomist started to ask me questions about pertinent information, and as I was returning to this position from almost 5 months off of work, it was important because there were certain things I could do with my neck, and certain things I simply could not, so I had a good impression about that part of her information gathering skills. Now, I’m not trying to be difficult or hard on anyone, its just that I notice things that can negatively effect someone’s business, and I am very quick to forgive the small stuff that shouldn’t really be a ‘deal breaker’.

After the information was complete, which took about 5 minutes, she talked about the chair I was using, and told me that it was a ‘global’ chair, and that told me that she at least recognized a major brand of chair, which I was pleased with. She knew the different characteristics that the chair had, and could tell me exactly what each knob, paddle or adjuster would do even before we touched the different parts of the chair. So far, I was fairly impressed with her service and her delivery of the information.

She brought out a tape measure and started measuring the desk height, as well as the chairs height. She informed me that the elbows needed to be at a 90 degree angle (check) and that the legs could be more toward a 100 degree angle because the seat could be raised just a little higher to ensure the correct body positioning. (check) So far, so good. This ergonomist was providing what I considered to be a good solid understanding of her skill sets, and her service was pleasant as well as fairly informative. Just what I would suspect from almost any company that sends in a ergonomist. That’s right about where the wheels fell off the wagon (so to speak)

My other day job that I had to see the ergonomist for is going to supply me with a very large monitor. Somewhere in the area of about 40 inches. I asked the ergonomist what she knew about eye fatigue, and how close or far away it should be away from the user. At that point, she had the ‘deer caught in the headlights’ syndrome. She admitted to me that she didn’t have a clue about eye fatigue and monitors. Interestingly enough, the first Google enquiry brought up a variety of articles on that very subject, and oddly enough, almost every one of those articles were created by ergonomists. That’s right, funny that. Here’s something else that I found funny. (Well, more disappointing than funny)

I had to ask for her business card, and at the end of the meeting she shook my hand, and just walked away completely satisfied that she had completed her duties in full. I was at least expecting to see some kind of literature explaining how often you should take a break, what stretching exercises you should do, what kind of eye exercises need to be done in order to create comfort for the PC user. That ergonomist could have done so much more to market her company and ensure future growth within her industry. Yes, the ergonomist did the minimum of what was required, but missed a HUGE opportunity by not going the extra mile and handing out at least a few pamphlets on proper ergonomics. To be honest, I had the expectation of an educator, not just a quick fact checker.

Here is a message for all ergonomists who could have done a fantastic job but chose not to. Make sure that you give more than your supposed to. Hand out a chart to each and every individual client that is working on an PC. Something that they can pin up, tape up, tack up or stand up on their desks to help them throughout the day. Now, I’m not an ergonomist, but you could put together a list such as.

1) How often should you take a break
2) Eye exercises, and how important they are, and how often should they be done.
3) What stretch movements should a computer operator do, and with which frequency.
4) Facts and figures about monitor eye fatigue.
5) Which repetitive motions cause Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, and how to prevent it.
6) Body positioning: The importance of breathing and diaphragm relaxation.
7) If you change chairs, and someone takes your chair, how do you set up the next one?
Is there some kind of a timer to remind you when to take breaks.
9) Paper flow and filing systems,
10) Monitor resolution, refresh rate, and any other program that will ease viewing for the user.
11) Special eyeglasses specifically created for the PC user.

Hey, in just under the 3 minute mark I came up with 11 ideas that not only could help the PC user but help the ergonomist establish their brand, create extra sales and gain much more market share within their industry. Come on guys and girls, wake up and smell the coffee. This is the business world were talking about here and not just some kind of a sideshow carnival. You need to be hungry, focused, unbelievably helpful beyond belief and become an educational resources the likes that no one has ever seen.

The internet is so vitally important to everyone, and your particular business that you as an ergonomist need to hand out your business card with your website on it and ask them to visit your site for more information every single time you have a conversation with a client, perspective client or even a person that is showing casual interest in what you do. Ergonmists are in high demand because of all the PC’s required to run a business. You should be going into businesses on a regular basis and asking staff if they have any questions about ergonomics, and then address them on the spot if you can, and if you can’t right at the moment, find the answer when you get to the office and email the recipient back with the answer.

Further, (now I’m being picky) I think that each ergonomist in their office should contribute a few chapters toward a book that could be offered for free (yes, I said free) to give to clients when you visit them that discusses the 11 points mentioned above.

My good friend, Yvette Eastman is about to create one of the smartest marketing campaigns her company has ever seen. I am driving over to her apartment in the next few days to video record her teaching some very enthusiastic students that are going to learn her unique and very powerful system. There will be multiple camera’s, microphones, lighting, headsets, mixing boards and a notebook PC to record it all on. Yvette has written over 10 paper based books, and taught Reflexology and holistic health for over 30 years. She’s at the stage where she’s slowing down and just doesn’t want to go see her public. For once she is allowing her public to chase her.

I’m hopefully doing most of the video and audio work, and in post production we will clean up any rough edges that may effect quality and presentation. But, and this is a big but, I don’t want to make it too polished and professional. If we do, then it will appear that the average business owner can’t do this, and I go out of my way proving that the average biz owner can do this and much more with just a little patience, creative thinking and a smaller budget than you might think. I have interviewed Yvette in her home, and on Skype and found she has an abundance of information that is so important and thought provoking that not putting it up in some kind of an educational system you can download would be a crime. She has a very charismatic way about her, and the times we have found ourselves sitting around a microphone and a camera, she has such a variety of things to talk about, it doesn’t take us long to veer off course. That’s actually a good thing because when Yvette can relax and forget she is being recorded, her content has extreme value.

I have my equipment tested and all packed up, and tomorrow I will visit her in her home to go over a few final details before we begin recording. I will present to you a step by step guide of what we did, how we recorded Yvette, what equipment we used, and what equipment you can use when doing this kind of work for your small to medium sized business. Did you know that you can actually use your smartphone to record an audio podcast for free? Then, put that same recording on a web based radio technology called ‘Spreaker’ for absolutely nothing. Then, take the spreaker link and import it over to your blog, Facebook and twitter account for the huge sum of zero? Just because it’s free to use doesn’t mean it won’t have value. Look at how many things are free on the internet. Email, social networking platforms, Craigslist, hundreds if not thousands of other free services are out there for you to grow your business.
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Day of the video recording. So, I arrive at just after nine o’clock in the morning on Friday. I have one huge pelican case, one smaller case (which I call my ‘go case’ because it contains my audio equipment), and smaller case than my go case that contains extra wires, connections, duct tape and other miscellaneous odds and ends that I may need throughout the day. I have packed my JVC High Def camera, a Samsung camcorder, and the one camera that I use the most of all of them, my Logitech 9000 webcam. I also have my trusted Vado high def pocketcam, as well as a flipcam. I know that this is overkill, but I have learned that if you over pack for a video recording, you’ll most likely be able to handle most everything that the day throws at you.

As Yvette was starting to instruct her class, I didn’t want to get in the way, so I tip toed as much as I could while setting up the camera. I used my little Panasonic digital recorder that can accept a dynamic microphone which I hooked up, and wired Yvette up fairly quickly. I got about one hours worth of audio, and Yvette called a break in her class, which was the perfect opportunity to get a video camera on her, as well as another microphone. Yvette owns a great gaming USB headset, and I thought it would make a perfect combination with my Logitech 9000 webcam. Now, I love to use my own equipment in most situations, but I wanted to see just how good this gaming headset was going to perform. We had a challenge to overcome. Yvette could not wear the headset while teaching the class, so we decided to loop it around her neck, but we soon realized that it was chafing her neck, and not comfortable for her at all. I got an idea. What if we found a piece of fabric about 2 to 3 feet long (roughly the size of a belt, except in fabric) and tie each end around the headphones close to the ear cups. Then, we slipped the piece of fabric over her neck and pointed the microphone staight up toward her mouth. Perfect fit. It looked a little odd, but it did the trick quite nicely, and we captured some very good quality audio.

We are planning to put together an outrageous on line ‘college type’ of learning system. This system is going to be a very dynamic mix of text, diagrams, videos, on-line quizzes, exams, webinars and personal one on one skype classroom support question and answer scenarios that will add extra value to Yvette’s program. It should be a fantastic marketing campaign and I just love to put this kind of work together. Were going to Twitter, Google Plus and Facebook this course off of the face of the planet and into cosmic orbit because we are building something with incredible strength, elasticity and fortitude. And again, when we do this, we will tell you exactly how and what we are doing for free. Call us crazy but we will also be building trust between you and us by giving this information away.

Really, our philosophy is to be so transparent that when you see how easy (and fun) blogging and podcasting can be, you may want to give it a try. There is no better and powerful way to teach someone how to grow their business than to show them first hand the hows and whys. Quite frankly, I’m disgusted at all of the ‘snake oil salespeople’ who will try to sell you a bunch of very expensive services that you really don’t need, but someone has told you that you need.

I also realized that in order to instil confidence in her system for all who touched it, we had to build in a superior support section that could help create a ‘fanatical fan base’. Let me explain a little bit. At Yvette’s advanced Reflexology course that I just recorded, I hand picked a few students and offered to help put together a basic blog to help them grow their business. The purpose was to show them how to blog and podcast to position their own companies to gain market exposure. I wanted to get them to start thinking about their business all the time, and to treat their blog entries as if they were writing a book that they could then publish on Amazon to create a solid profit base, not only from their Reflexology biz, but from the sale of their book. Actually, the concept is quite easy. Your blog’s existence should be all about helping others, and at the same time, not attempting to sell anything to anyone. Sounds ridiculous, right? It is. It’s so ridiculous it works really well.

Here’s a little bit of a breakdown. Dwight and Shirley are the two students I am working with. Dwight has been a reflexologist for several years in Regina, Saskatchewan. He has been very fortunate to find a professional group of physiotherapists and chiropractors that have invited him to work with them. He offers several different ways in which to access his services. The first is through his office with the physiotherapists and chiropractors. Then, he has a studio in his home, and for those who may not be able to go to the first office, they can drive to his home. If that is not an option, Dwight will actually drive to the clients home for free if the client wants Dwight to go to their home. He is pretty well entrenched with the ability to get his services to anyone who wants them.

Dwight wanted to enhance his training, and that is why he came down to take the course from Yvette. He is focused, dedicated and realizes that in order to increase his business he needed to upgrade his education in his chosen field. Dwight is also a student of Kung Fu, and for years has been trained in the martial art called ‘Wing Chung’, one of Bruce Lee’s arts. Here is what I have suggested Dwight do with his blog. His absolute love of Kung Fu can be easily combined with his love of Reflexology this way. I have suggested to Dwight that he start blogging, and begin writing a book called ‘The Kung Fu of Reflexology’. Now, Kung Fu literally means ‘The effort of a man’ (I promise I’m not being sexist here, that’s what the interpretation means) Through rigorous training in Wing Chung, Dwight had to learn how to breath a very special way through the diaphragm. A very relaxing and powerful way to supply more oxygen to the blood, and teaches the body and mind to completely rid itself of any residual stress. Do you think that Dwight could design a system to teach his client how to breath to full relaxation as he is working on their feet? And now you see why I suggested to him that he really needs to write this book. It would be absolutely incredible, and put his business in a very unique and almost untouchable position that could almost guarantee Dwight has a long and successful run at his own strongly positioned business.

As he begins to take his blog entries and form them into specific chapters of a book, Dwight can offer a unique perspective about his type of Reflexology that no one else can. That is very smart business. Do something so unique, powerful, dynamic and interesting that onlookers will enthusiastically refer you to other folks in your own home town, city, state, province, and then all over the world. Small business doesn’t mean small profits. It means that your company can act faster, adapt quicker and shape new business growth with almost lightning speed efficiency.

So, we now know that Dwight has a full and interesting direction he can take his business on for perhaps six months to one year, (or at least until he publishes that book) let’s talk about another student of Yvette’s, her name is Shirley. Shirley loves to care for the elderly. That’s her speciality, but she admitted to me when we were doing the interview that she has to distance herself a little bit as well or she may become just a bit ‘too connected’ with the clients. She’s got a very caring heart, and when you watch the interview I did with her, she just ‘bubbles’ with passion and excitement. She’s charismatic and has a very special gift of being able to connect with clients very quickly and make them feel really comfortable when she is working on their feet. For Shirley’s task at a book, the choice was obvious. As we were talking in front of the camera, I told her that she really needed to write a book called ‘Social Touch Reflexology’. It would be a perfect fit for her.

You should have seen Shirley’s face light up when I told her she needed to write that book. (Actually, you can see the video, just click here to view it) She mentioned things like: Seniors who were socks that are too tight effect pressure points on various areas of the feet. Calf muscles that are easily bruised when the elderly are sitting in a wheel chair and the bars of the chair press into the back of the lower leg. She mentioned quite a few areas of concern within the interview and by the time we were done chatting, Shirley had a list long enough to start writing her book on her own style of Reflexology. Yvette is always harping at her students that she doesn’t want to create a bunch of ‘mini-me’s', but instead wants her students to put their own personality into their part of their passion and business. I think that’s a great way to look at things from a unique business perspective.

So, one of the questions you may be asking yourself is this. Why do I get so excited about telling business owners to write their own books and publish them? It’s because when they write a really good book and its full of exceptional content, and is offered through a major on line e-publishing house like Amazon, there are a ton of people who can benefit from it. Will these articles of wit and wisdoms be best selling great american novels? Most likely not, but its really exciting watching someone take the time and effort to create a wonderful ‘care-guide’ for someone who is hungry for that specific kind of information. As a matter of fact, I plan to use this material that you are viewing right now in a book to show how easy it is to realize your own small business dream, and to write a book about it.

And what happens if you don’t want to charge for you book, but decide to give it away on your web site or blog for absolutely nothing? To that I say ‘more power to you’ because you have taken it upon yourself to become a true educational resource and give your knowledge away. I can’t think of a better way to establish your integrity, honesty and self worth than giving away some of your best advice on the subject you love.

Crazy title, right? I needed it to be crazy enough so you would notice it and perhaps want to read it. Here is my little true-to-life story. Yesterday (Feb 16th 2012) I decided that I needed a haircut. Now, to most people, this is not a big deal, you simply phone your barber or hair dresser, make an appointment, sit in the chair to get your hair cut and after you pay your bill your ‘madly off in all directions’ once again. But, for me (and I think only I would be this ‘strange’, I decided to cut my own hair.) I mean, how difficult could it be? I’m a 52 year old man, and a self styled haircut shouldn’t intimidate me one bit. I was right, and convinced myself as I took the long walk down the hallway and into our on-suite wash-room.

We purchased a do-it-at-home hair cutting kit at Costco a few years back and my wife has done a great job of cutting my hair with it. Have you ever seen the show ’18 Kids And Counting?’ In that scenario, the wife cuts almost everyone’s hair and saves them gobs of money, and I got impatient and my wife was at work so I said to myself ‘it’s time for an adventure’. At first, I used the number 5 clipper comb on my head and wasn’t getting anywhere. There were no buzzing sounds, and almost none of my dirty blonde hair was falling down into the sink, so I decided to step it up a notch.

When I go to my hairdresser (Michelle) I always ask for a short Caesar #2 cut, so I know that the shortest I will ever go is a number 2. (A few years ago I completely shaved my head and beard off and LOVED it, but my wife, grand-kids and everyone I know said that I looked like a convict, so that style didn’t last very long. As I started to gently use the number 2 clipper comb over my head I noticed quite a bit of hair falling off and into the sink. Excellent, I’m on my way to liberation. OK, so, instead of going from front to back which makes sense, and rationalizing that I needed a haircut that was even, I started to use the clipper from the left side to the right side. It still dropped hair, and I still wasn’t bald, so I took it to be a good omen.

I rubbed that clipper all around my head in any kind of pattern I could think of, and when I could no longer feel the clipper cutting hair I stopped and looked in the mirror. Wow. I just gave myself a hair cut, and it doesn’t look that bad. I’m serious. It looked pretty good. Now, the last thing that I needed to do was to hop into the shower to get all of the remaining hair off, lather up a few times, rinse and repeat. Done. I was extremely pleased that I had done something any reasonable person would not. Cut my own hair. To be fair, I noticed a few areas that were less than perfect, so I did what many people do, I just dabbed some hair gel on it, squished it down and all around, and presto-chango, my hair was very passable. So I went out in public with my new ‘doo’. No one freaked out, ran away, was startled when they looked at me, tried to dig into their pockets for extra change so I could get a ‘real haircut’, none of that happened. It was just an ordinary day with a crazy blogger at the wheel driving all over town doing his chores and activities.

Now, lets talk about your reluctance about setting up your businesses web presence, and somehow try to tie it into my little experiment. Your on line branding for your company can be great if you just ‘show up’. It can be better if you are willing to dedicate some time to it, and it can become most fantastic if you work it like a serious business proposition. Going on the web is a little bit like cutting your own hair. You might not ordinarily think of doing it, and as your going through the process, it feels kind of ‘icky, strange, somewhat foolish and even very intimidating’, but as you force yourself through that ‘known to the unknown’ stage, remember that it can turn around quickly from the ‘unknown to the known’ before you know it. Here’s where the hair gel comes into play.

Yes, the hair cut may have been a little rough around the edges, and yes there were parts that I just couldn’t see when I was doing it, and yes, I was slightly horrified as I was doing it (kind of like a vehicle crash, you don’t want to look, but something keeps drawing your eyes to it) but after I had a talk with myself that I could take some magic sticky stuff, rub it on my noggin and head out the door, everything in my world was back to being OK. Actually, better than OK because it meant that I knew how to cut my own hair, and the next time I did it, I would actually improve the way I did it, and create a better product (which happens to be my image) see the tie-in there?

I used the hair gel as my ‘relax with the situation’ attitude and told myself a reality. My hair without gel is unmanageable. My hair with gel is a thousand times better. I can sculpt it to a degree where I really like the results, so if your ready to put your business on line and are really scared, frustrated, don’t know what to do or how to get started, just go grab the hair clippers and stare at them in the bathroom mirror and you may begin to think differently. My hair doesn’t have to be absolutely picture perfect to go out in public, and neither does your web presence. It does need to ‘be there’ in some form.

If I let the hair gel be my attitude, I can be constructive, observant, creative, valuable and a force to be re-conned with. In other words, as I was slathering the hair gel on, I was thinking: this will make it fine, I can’t see anything wrong with my hair cut now. It’s an absolute truth that, once you truly convince yourself that you are ‘good’ and that if you did do a few tiny little mistakes, you can at least forgive yourself, and carry on with life after that.

How do I know my theory worked? Last night when my wife arrived home from work, she said: what happened to your hair? I said that I cut it myself, and that a little bit of gel fixed any small imperfections, and do you know what she said and did? She said, ‘great, what’s for dinner, I’m starved’. I knew that, if it looked that bad, Pat would go running down the hallway to the bathroom and take out the barber scissors that came with the kit and sat me down on a chair to ‘fix the issues’. She didn’t, we eat an excellent dinner of chicken wings and salad and I blogged for a bit while watching TV after dinner. Pretty neat, huh? Get involved and become extremely valuable to someone. Blog and podcast about you, and your business and you will find areas of your life that can become ‘delightful’ again. Thanks for reading. Blog at you later, Rick and Pat.

When you go to wait to see your Doctor, do you go prepared, or just sit there steaming so that, by the time you see him or her, your blood pressure is through the roof. Relax, take a book, listen to a podcast, or create a ‘to do list’, but realize that you will still have to wait. Here’s a video that might help you.

Guess who’s doing a great job with newspaper advertising and using technology to grow their business. Hats off to ‘Momento Mori Studio’s’ Their ad is well balanced, clean, easy to read and understand, and uses QR coding to make it easy to access them.

As a podcaster that is focused on teaching and helping small and medium businesses in the Abbotsford area grow, I thought this would be a great time to share with you one of the companies that know’s how to ‘get it right’. Follow me as I listen to one of their podcasts and take notes, then share my thoughts with you. Enjoy the video.