The Path is Finally Clear

I’ve been alluding to the changes and streamlining taking place in my company’s structure lately – all great things. Much needed and long overdue. Beyond the necessity of them just for the sake of time or more money, the real purpose has been to make room for my next big thing.

Which begins today. {insert giant smiley face}

About 11 years ago I met a 19 year old genius, girl-wonder, Warren Buffet in-training,  named Kendra Kinnison. Those monikers don’t even do her justice, really. She was a CPA and was finishing her MBA – the youngest one ever from Texas A&M Corpus Christi, in fact. She helped me launch Crossover Consulting. My family moved to California and we lost touch for a while, but we reconnected at a Social Media Club Meeting a little over a year ago and found that we still had a lot in common – a love of technology, a heart for people, and a passion to see the two really click together.

We also had a shared Christian faith (although from different traditions, I’m a Presbymergent and she’s not) and found that we shared some similar stories of how it had sustained us through the worst trials imaginable, bringing us – no, driving us -  to an epiphany. An awakening awareness that while we were both savvy businesswomen and had profound training and experience, financial success, professional notoriety and public respect…

Without the fundamental platform of God’s love, the guiding compass of His Grace and His 2000 year old instruction manual, there couldn’t possibly be the deep satisfaction or fullness of life that we’re all seeking.

We knew that our stories couldn’t be unique. We knew many friends and colleagues struggling with the same issues we did. Issues of health, money, relationships and career. Kendra was the first to fit the pieces together and realize there was a message to be shared. She was writing and blogging her experiences for almost two years before the lunch that decided our business path and plan.

Realizing that there are no coincidences in life, we formed a business partnership and began to brainstorm and fit pieces together, asking the question, “what’s the practical applications for this?”

We took Kendra’s blog, Imagine More, and we blew it up. We expanded her tech toolbox to an entire resource library and I came on as the Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder of Imagine More Ventures, LLC.

This is important.

We knew that what we wanted was not another self-help book. Not another pray harder, faith-alone fad, or a regurgitation of the same old business mantras of  smarter-not-harder-find-your-bliss-center-your-chi-balance-your-world, and the myriad variations thereof. Been there. Done that. Bought the shirt, book, CD, DVD and poster. None of it sticks because it tried to be the one key that fits all the locks.

We knew the real one key to it all was the uniqueness of how we’re all designed. There is no one size fits all. We are all fearfully and wonderfully made – differently. Very differently. Like Kendra and I. And you.

So, we created the Imagine More University. A series of training courses designed by two amazing public speakers and trainers to be exactly what you need to design your own plan for success with practical, bite-sized daily lessons, quick video tutorials and weekly live coaching to bring it all together and keep you moving forward.

We think of ourselves as tour guides. You choose the itinerary. We’ll help interpret the map, navigate pitfalls and show you the wonders of your journey. We’re on the journey, too. It’s pretty amazing.

Practically speaking, we’ve created two complimentary courses. YouSchool and GeekSchool. Two tracks of learning that can be taken separately, but are better together.

YouSchool is Kendra’s area of expertise. Big picture dreaming, broken down into manageable actions, with accountability. It’s a guide to finding, finessing and then making your dreams reality. Your dreams – not someone else’s definition of success, or wealth or happiness. It’s the ultimate lifestyle redesign.

GeekSchool is my baby. For more than 15 years, I’ve heard people say that they can’t get a handle on the technology that’s out there. GeekSchool is the answer to that. It’s a refined, systematic approach to incorporating technology into your business and personal world, buying you back the time you need to really live. You’ll learn how to tame your inbox, master your task lists, organize your communication – and that’s just the first month. In a 12-week span of time, you’ll understand and, more importantly, use technology as a tool and to it’s fullest potential.

Ready to Imagine More too? Start Here. Join the Journey.

I was pregnant with Cathryn when I designed my first website. She turned 15 a couple of months ago, so that tells you how long I’ve been doing this. Actually, I’ve always had “Degree Envy” of my husband, who actually has a degree in Commercial & Graphic Art (and the accompanying student loans still outstanding, I might add.)

Design is subjective. Programming is not subjective, and I’m a pretty dang good hack at that, if I do say so myself. I taught myself C+ and Basic back in the 80’s and 90’s and now I program in PHP/mySQL, XML, SOAP and Javascript. I wrote scripts for Sabre and Apollo and PARS and most of those scripts would still work if those systems were still around. Programming makes more sense to me than design because compiling a script doesn’t rely on whether or not that color is on the opposite side of the color wheel, and makes people buy more things on the weekends. It either works – or it doesn’t.

Design, on the other hand is all squishy and emotional. Which I like… occasionally. Like today. I had to rewire the old virtual office again, making way for my new labor of love Imagine More (more on that next week, I promise.)

Keeping my Mastermind Goals as my level, I looked realistically at my many websites, services and products. Too many to be effective – but I already knew that. So – I took a deep breath and starting to slash, consolidate and shutter. And, like the Hydra that it had become, the more I battled, the more heads it grew.

I ended up with Orchard Bay Group – as the main business card website for the sites that were left which consisted of Marker9Design.com for all my non-travel business, Crossover Consulting as the main functional site for travel industry speaking and consulting, TravelWebMarketing for the training classes to teach travel pros to market their business, WP-TravelDesign.com for travel websites designed in WordPress and WP-TravelTheme.com for Premium and Free WordPress travel themes for sale.

And I shuttered three major sites. Port Aransas Web and Padre Island Web were both locally targeted niche sites and I loved them – but really, Marker9Design is a better portfolio of what I do in the non-travel realm. GemTravelSites was the main travel website brand for close to 9 years, but since all my design work is in WordPress it wasn’t practical to keep it out there. All support and legacy sites will be supported through WP-TravelDesign.com

And it’s my new favorite site of all time. Its the first site I’ve done just for me. Just because I loved the concept I had for it – a vintage travel theme, with old passport pages, and stamps, making me think of times when steam trains and gloves were the norm. I loved the photo I chose for the “about” page – it looks like me when I caught my travel bug. I love the look of the palm trees from the 60’s, reminding me of my Southern California in the 70’s. All my favorite travel eras captured. I remember when I loved to travel. I flew a lot. I took the train. It was elegant – and this site makes me remember it. And I designed it. And I programmed it. And both sides of my brain rejoiced.

Soon you’ll hear me blather on about some new mis-adventures… er…  adventures… er ventures that I’m embarking on in business. It’s a little scary – outside my comfort zone of the travel industry. I’m excited. Very excited. More on the specifics when they’re nailed down.

In the meantime…

Back in January my Mastermind Group, which is like a personal board of directors, helped me realize that I needed to jettison some of the more unprofitable aspects of my business. After a lot of soul searching, and a ton of reading Tim Ferriss’ “The Four Hour Workweek” again… and again… and the E-Myth series of books, I decided those smart, talented, opinionated people were right. I wasn’t happy… but they were right. I was essentially a professional volunteer and after committing to dig out of my own fiscal nightmare, I really needed to heed their advice and then – and here’s the hard part – do something about it.

I started with a lot of thought about what I wanted to do when I grew up. I love design and the hosting is stable and profitable so all the web design and web hosting remains intact – nothing changes, except for some great new enhancements to service and training, which have been stalled and choked by the bottleneck of projects that I’ve been afraid of facing.

Crossover Consulting was founded as an outsourced IT department for home based, small and medium sized businesses that couldn’t afford their own staff-person back in 1999. The challenge has become that it’s time consuming and doesn’t really have a great return on the time investment. So, I jettisoned all but one client. She’s local and she’s a pleasure to work with. She keeps me busy about 10 hours a week, but it also keeps me sharp in the skills department. I was on the fence about it, but Kendra Kinnison’s sage business advice in this blog post about a Results Oriented Work Environment tipped the scales and she made the cut.

Further analysis brought out that the way that the projects were aligned and shared resources weren’t quite right either, so all of the projects that were travel related now come under the umbrella of Crossover Consulting and I formed two new entities to better position the non-travel portions. This way the tech support, billing and training for all things travel is supported through Crossover Consulting, and everything else administrative comes under the new brand:  The Orchard Bay Group.

For design projects that were non-travel, I’ve always used Port Aransas Web or Padre Island Web as a point of sales and service – but new in 2010 I started to see an increase of more than 200% of non-travel, non-local business – so I decided on a name and brand for the bulk of my design endeavors – Marker9 Design. Why Marker 9? Simple: I live at Beach Marker 9 in Port Aransas, Texas. Plus, it just sounds edgy and cool. And I am all about edgy and cool. Just ask me.

Summing it all up:

1. Orchard Bay Group – the “holding company” for everything. Serves as the billing and customer service entity for all non-travel business.
2. Crossover Consulting – Speaking, Writing and Training on Website Design, Marketing and Social Media. The parent entity for GemTravelSites.com, WP-TravelDesign.com, TravelWebServer.com and TravelWebMarketing.com – which remain intact, sleeker and more focused – and all travel-related.
3. Marker9Design – WordPress Design, Themes and Customizations plus design for logos, merchandise and print.

Each of the sites continue to run independently of one another, but with the realignment I’ll shave more than 20 hours off administrative tasks each week, and I’ve got my eye on an amazing company to handle some of the other marketing-related tasks as well. It may seem counter-productive to actually add more entities, but trust me – it makes sense in light of what’s around the bend. Having all the travel-related projects separated from the non-travel ones will allow for growth and staff to concentrate on the niche they serve.

It’s like the Rubix Cube just flipped into place. Oh – and one more thing. I decided to add a new phone number for the Orchard Bay Group – which is an homage to where my Grandma and I spent almost every waking free moment of most summers growing up. When I went to get a new number from RingCentral, the number that I found was, in fact, her actual phone number – just toll-free.

Coincidence? Call me at 877-337-1538 and we’ll talk about it.

• 100vacations.com includes domain, existing design, 1yr hosting, twitter name and FB Page – $1500

• ahoneymooncruise.com – domain, NEW WordPress design, 1yr hosting, – $1250

• extratraveldeals.com – domain only – $250 OBO;

• 4spainfo.com - domain, existing design, 1yr hosting- $1250
  

All sites are designed in WordPress, feature some very cool travel plugins and are ready to go – whether you want to add unique content, integrate content from suppliers, consortiums or providers and come with full SEO capabilities.  I just don’t have the time to keep them going so I’m having a fire sale!

For more info call Chelle Yarbrough: 361-589-9265 before Tuesday!

I was invited to be part of a Mastermind Group with some smart, motivated, successful folks that I admire very much.  The purpose is to have a group of people that serve like your own personal board of directors – helping you along your personal and professional journey and holding you accountable for the goals that you set.

Our first meeting was very productive and we set some rules for our group and some goals for each of our members. One of the rules of the group is keeping it all “inside” the group, so while I won’t go into great detail I will say that this month shone a huge great spotlight on one of the biggest hindrances to my own success – not accounting for the unexpected.

I know how long it takes for me to do any given task – I’ve done this job a  long time.  I know my resources and I know the flow of my day – and even my month. I know, for example, that I function best in the mid-morning when I’m doing administrative tasks. I know that mid-day is my best training time (I’m quite verbal and sharp!) and I know that I’m virtually useless from 3-7pm. If I’m doing something creative I am a programming rockstar from 8pm-3am. Yep – all nighters, with caffeine, no people to distract and a boatload of cheesy infomercials.

My goals with the Mastermind Group this month were specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-sensitive.

And I missed EVERY single one of them.

Of course, they don’t know my business all that well and I could have bluffed my way through it. But that’s not the point. The point is to learn something about myself and how to overcome the challenges I face – to make myself a better leader and my company more successful. So, rather than sweep it under the carpet I spent some time this afternoon going back over my day-by-day and discovered that like with most budgets, whether time or money, it’s the unexpected things that killed me.

Here’s the takeaway. Rather than look at these as an excuse, or even a reason, I drilled through each of the unexpected items to see if I could have planned for them (nope, that’s why they’re called “unexpected”) or how I could have managed them better. In the end, I learned that while my goals were realistic – my definition of reality needed to change. The reality is that I do have a couple of diverse clients that need me to fix their computers (which I don’t do, as a general rule) and I need to build in some possibility of those things happening. I also need to re-visit priorities more often and not just do the thing that presents itself.

So far, an excellent exercise in self-analysis. A little course correction and I’m back on track.