Here’s a very welcome addition to my chat updates from my friend Annabelle Beckwith of Yara Consulting. Anna’s first interview was published at the end of April 2012, and she said this about her plans for the next year:

Are you where you thought you’d be when you looked forward a year ago?

Yes and no – I thought I’d be doing more online than I actually am. My short e-book, ‘A Quick Guide to Indian Culture‘ is available on Kindle, though, and selling well, and I still have plans to market products online.

What has changed and what has stayed the same?

My approach has stayed the same: the biggest difference is the extent to which I’m collaborating with others – with Susan Grandfield at SG Development Solutions on a major project , and with training colleagues, Ian Thomson and Charlotte Cameron, with whom I’ve formed a consortium ‘Never Mind the Buzzwords’. We’ve already won our first pitch to deliver a programme for Senior Managers at a Leeds-based charity.

We all have different sets of skills, so it makes sense to combine them in approaching larger clients.

What have you learned? What do you wish you’d known a year ago?

I’ve learned to leverage the skills of others more, and to focus on what I do well. My forte is in developing creative and experiential (and sometimes off the wall) approaches to learning and development, and I have a strong network of people with complementary skills whom I can draw upon.

In some respects I wish I’d started these more formal collaborations last year…on the other hand, the time seems right at the moment.

Any more hints and tips for people?

Don’t look back with regret. Look back and learn … and keep moving forward. And , as Churchill put it “never, never, never give up”.

And … where do you see yourself and your business in a(nother) year’s time.

Working collaboratively with others for larger clients … and maybe I’ll get some of those online products going!

So, not so much of the online products, but lots of exciting-sounding collaboration. This has been a bit of a theme in this series recently, and I can also bear witness to the fact that as your business grows and matures, it’s most useful to treat your colleagues as just that, colleagues, rather than rivals. Even if you don’t make formal collaborative arrangements, there will still be times when you know that someone else’s skills will work for your prospective – or current – client better than yours do, or simply be swamped with work and need reliable people to recommend prospects on to.

We look forward to hearing more exciting news next year!

The Yara Consulting website can be found at www.yaraconsulting.com  and she has a blog, too. Anna can be contacted via email or her contact page online.

If you’ve enjoyed this interview, please see more small business chat, the index to all the interviewees, and information on how you can have your business featured. If you’re considering setting up a new business or have recently done so, why not take a look at my new book, Going It Alone At 40: How I Survived my First Year of Full-Time Self-Employment.

How do you tell whether an investment is worth it?

Investments for a small business can be broken down into

• Outsourcing (paying other people to take on tasks you might do in-house)
• Products, materials and services
• Training

Is it worth outsourcing this task?

In a previous post, I talked about how to tell when it’s time to outsource a task to do with your business. My rules then were:

• If you’re rubbish at doing something and I’m good at it, outsource it to me (even if you’ve got the time to do it yourself or it’s going to cost you more per hour)
• If the time it will take you costs more in your worth per hour than it would cost to pay someone else to do it, then outsource it (e.g. transcribing your interview will take you 6 hours and you’re worth £40 an hour (£240) – better to send it to me who can do it for you for £60.

This links into a couple that are about time:

• If it’s going to take you 6 hours to do but me 3 hours to do, then outsource it to me
• If it’s going to take you 6 hours to do and me 6 hours to do, but you don’t have those 6 hours free, then outsource it to me

But you can add in some other factors, too, such as the boredom factor:

• If you’re perfectly able to do the task and it would cost more to have someone else do it, but it bores you to tears and you never get round to doing it until it turns into an unholy mess, outsource it to me.

This last one is how I decided to hire an accountant to do my accounts and my bank reconciliation.

Is it worth buying this product or service or these materials?

That’s all about outsourcing. What about investing in products and services? These are my rules:

1. If it will make my work more quick or more efficient – consider buying it
2. If it will make my records more secure – consider buying it
3. If it will advertise my services to my core market – consider buying it (for a year on a trial)
4. If it costs under £100 – go for it

Points two and four combined to make me buy my external back-up drive and my professional version of my transcription management software.

Points three and four combined to make me sign up for membership to Proz (a jobs board service), which I’ve stayed with, and other sites and associations, which I have trialled and haven’t stayed with (see section on Return on Investment in the next article).

Of course the £100 level is an arbitrary level I selected. In fact, I didn’t select it consciously: I’ve just noticed that that’s the level I’m comfortable with.

Regarding materials, I don’t use materials in my editing business. But the golden rule here has to be:

• Will the price of the item you’re making be higher than the cost of the materials? If not: find cheaper materials or adjust your prices within sensible limits

Is it worth buying this training course?

And a special consideration on training, as this is something I have been pondering and decided not to invest in:

1. Is the training run by an accredited provider that is respected in my industry?
2. Does it train me on something I will use in my everyday work life?
3. Will it add a skill to my portfolio that I

• know there is a market for
• will enjoy doing
• have got time to commit to fully once I’m trained up?

Point two helped me decide not to take the training provided by a well-known and respected association in order to gain qualifications with them, because they are all about editing on paper and I have done one job on paper in four years.

And the last bullet in point three is how I decided NOT to pursue training in the art of indexing. Yes, there’s a market for it; yes, I would enjoy doing it; but no, I have a full roster of valued clients at the moment. If I was to take on indexing work, something would have to give: either my evenings and weekends, which I have pretty well reclaimed from Libro, or one or more of my current customers. I wasn’t ready for either of those scenarios, so let it go.

Do I invest in advance or arrears?

This is a tricky one. I’m facing it at the moment with my book.

I really want to publish a print version of my e-book. I’ve got some quotes for producing the back and spine cover art and wording, and for producing it as print-on-demand and fulfilling it via the online bookshops. I would be able to buy copies for myself and sell them at events. I’d also have a physical book with my name on.

I was always adamant that the book needed to pay its way, i.e. I wouldn’t do new or paid-for initiatives until the book had actually brought in the money into my bank account to pay for it. Ignoring the hours I put into writing and promoting the book so far, I would need to sell approximately five times as many e-copies as I have already to pay for the setup, design and print-on-demand service (the fulfilment cost comes out of the profit on each copy).

I should make at least twice the profit on each print copy that I sell as I do on the e-books, if they sell.

Do I wait until I’ve made that money to go ahead? Do I wait until I’ve made half of it and then risk the other half, assuming it will take me half as many books sold in print to get the investment back? Do I do it now and hope I sell 2.5 times the books in print that I’ve sold in electronic form to pay myself back?

Before, I’ve always waited until I have the money put aside before I buy something – I didn’t invest in my new PC and laptop until my Libro business had been going for a couple of years and I had the money in the bank (were they worth it? Read next week’s article to find out!). But I’m eager to get those print copies out there … and I really don’t know what to do at the moment.

How do you choose how to invest / whether to invest?

How do you make your decisions? Have I missed something here? I’d love to know your thoughts – do post a comment! And … should I make a leap of faith and invest in print copies of my book? Help me to decide!

In the second part of this article, I’ll be talking about how to calculate your return on investment, what’s been worth it for me – and what hasn’t – and there’ll be space for you to have your say there, too!

In a common theme that runs through these interviews, this successful business (it’s been running for nine years) was started because the business owner had experience in the area she wanted to go into. I’m becoming more and more sure that this is key, but maybe one of you will prove me wrong …

Let’s meet Diane and find out more about her business and the lessons she’s learned.

What’s your business called? When did you set it up?

Kanine Kampus & Pet Au Purrs, I set up Pet au Purrs in April 2004 and it was mainly pet sitting, dog walking and small pet home boarding (rabbits and guinea pigs, etc.).

What made you decide to set up your own business?

I had the chance of being made redundant from the vets where I worked, and I had experience in dog grooming, running a kennels and also running the feline holiday apartments connected to the vets.

What made you decide to go into this particular business area?

I have always worked with animals in various areas, and decided I wanted to stay working with animals.

Had you run your own business before?

Never.

How did you do it? Did you launch full-time, start off with a part-time or full-time job to keep you going … ?

I just set up full time in what I was doing, I was lucky to have the backup of my husband having a good job at the time.

What do you wish someone had told you before you started?

Don’t panic, don’t stress!

What would you go back and tell your newly entrepreneurial self?

Follow your dream.

What do you wish you’d done differently?

Set up the daycare part of the business sooner.

What are you glad you did?

I’m definitely glad that I went down this route.

What’s your top business tip?

Be sensible, but if it’s your dream, follow it through.

How has it gone since you started? Have you grown, diversified or stayed the same?

It’s grown: now we have the daycare it’s opened up a whole new side of the business, and more opportunities, such as Dog Grooming. We have teamed up with Gillian Linnell, helping her to expand what she offers, and also with Rachel Bean, RVN Canine Behaviourist, to provide first aid and puppy workshops. We also offer dog training and have a small shop area.

Where do you see yourself and your business in a year’s time?

I hope that the business keeps growing and we could maybe have another branch of Kanine Kampus in another area.

That’s very good advice, isn’t it: don’t panic, don’t stress, be sensible and follow your dream. As I said earlier, partnering with colleagues in the same business area is often a sensible path to follow that can help you both to expand what you offer and provide a wide-ranging service, and is something that I think everyone should look into. At very least, it can provide that all-important holiday and sickness cover, as I’ve found out over the years. Best of luck to Diane with her plans for expansion and possibly more collaboration, and we’ll look forward to finding out how things are going in a year’s time!

You can visit the Kanine Kampus and Pet Au Purrs, based in Oldham, at www.pet-au-purrs.com, phone Diane or Paddy on 07942 892 728 or visit their Facebook page.

If you’ve enjoyed this interview, please see more small business chat, the index to all the interviewees, and information on how you can have your business featured. If you’re considering setting up a new business or have recently done so, why not take a look at my new book, Going It Alone At 40: How I Survived my First Year of Full-Time Self-Employment.

Help! My comment box margin is too large!

This is the problem that my friend, Laura, had. Her comment box margin was somehow spreading across almost the whole page. Although it doesn’t encroach on the text area on the page, it makes your total page really wide. It looked something like this:

Even on my wide monitor, if the comment box margin is too wide, you get the choice of being able to see all of the text, as above, or all of the comment, as below – not very helpful!

How do you resolve this issue? You need to pop into Track Changes (in the Review tab) and click on the little arrow at the bottom to give you the Track Changes Options. Right at the bottom, you’ll find options for making the comment review pane / margin smaller (and moving it to the left or top if you so desire).

The default is 6.5 cm but if you like to have your page of text bigger but still see your comments, change this to a smaller size.

Note, that like everything in Track Changes, this only changes the view on your computer – whoever you are sending the document to will see it however they’ve set it up.

Help! My comment box text is too large!

Are you experiencing this problem:

To change this to a normal size, we need to access the Styles dialogue box, by either

• Pressing Control + Alt + Shift + s simultaneously
• Going to the Home tab and clicking the little arrow at the bottom right of the Styles menu

This brings up the Styles dialogue box.

Click the right hand button at the bottom: Manage Styles. When you first open this next window, the sort order is As Recommended – click on the down arrow to change it to Alphabetical:

Find Balloon Text (note: not Comment text) and it confirms how you have your text set up (blue circle).

Click the Modify button … to change your font and font size. You’ll notice lots of other options (blue circle) to change the spacing, etc.

The standard size for balloon text is 8 or 10 so choose that and you’ll have a nice tidy balloon again!

Press the OK button, and carry on pressing OK buttons until you get back to your document. Now, your comment will appear in the style you have chosen.

Again, these changes will only affect your computer.

These related topics should help you further:

What to do if your comment boxes go tiny in Word

What to do if your comment boxes start running from right to left

Changing the language in your comment balloons

Customising your comment boxes – everything you need to know

Customising Track Changes

This is part of my series on how to avoid time-consuming “short cuts” and use Word in the right way to maximise your time and improve the look of your documents. Find all the short cuts here …

Do let me know if this has helped you, saved your bacon, etc. – and do share with the buttons at the bottom of this article.

Are you where you thought you’d be when you looked forward a year ago?

Hmm, well you me reminded that I’d said, “I think we’ll focus now on expanding our reach and less on adding new services”. Shows how much I know, huh? It’s true we have put some time and effort into boosting our web presence … but we also decided it would be fun to revolutionise the way that writers searched for literary agents in the UK. So we built Agent Hunter, a site that holds details on every literary agent in Britain, and provides data that is richer and more searchable than anything which has gone before. We’ve only just launched it and still have a LOT of work to do, but early indications are wonderfully promising.

What has changed and what has stayed the same?

The biggest change is the launch of Agent Hunter. What stays the same is the need to keep on looking at how we attract clients. Viewing ourselves through their eyes – and doing all we can to deliver amazing editing services to make sure that every manuscript leaves our hands better than it arrived. And our clients, of course, always want to be hooked up with literary agents, so we’ve done more and more to deepen our connections with that community.

What have you learned? What do you wish you’d known a year ago?

The big thing would be that when it comes to these big database projects (like Agent Hunter) you can’t do too much thinking and specification in advance. I can easily see why major government IT projects go over budget. We did OK, but we were learning fast on the job.

Any more hints and tips for people?

Yes! Have fun. Be open to the new. This time a year ago, we were fully open to working hard on our editorial services and writing courses … and leaving it at that. But (when walking back from the pub one day) it occurred to us that we could create something like Agent Hunter and we just thought, why not? A few phone calls later and we were committed.

And … where do you see yourself and your business in a(nother) year’s time?

The centre of our business will always be our manuscript editing services. That’s not just the biggest revenue earner for us, it’s also the company’s spiritual core. But if we see great things we can add on to what we already do, I think we’ll go for it. At the moment, I don’t see anything like that on the horizon, but we’ll never say no to a good idea.

So, a bit of a surprise new addition to the business there, that certainly wasn’t in the air a year ago – but it all sounds very exciting and we wish the new Agent Hunter initiative lots of success in the coming year. I wonder what Harry will have come up with by this time next year … be sure to watch this space!

The Writers’ Workshop can be found online at www.writersworkshop.co.uk

If you’ve enjoyed this interview, please see more small business chat, the index to all the interviewees, and information on how you can have your business featured.

Which direction did Gillian take? Read on to find out …

Are you where you thought you’d be when you looked forward a year ago?

I am in a different place than I was when first interviewed, I still offer pet supplies but a more niche market now: my suppier is Puchi Petwear, and they specialise in designer pet wear for dogs and cats, as seen on TV and used by celebrities. I dont tend to push this side of the business so much these days, as the Pet Service side has become the main title, hence the company name change from GGL Pet Supplies to GGL Pet Services.

What has changed and what has stayed the same?

Not a great deal has stayed the same, it’s all changed! I’m now Licensed by OMBC for home boarding dogs, I have a vast client database and dog walking takes up a lot of my day.  I have teamed up with another company, Kanine Kampus Doggie Daycare (read their Small Business Chat here), and we work together every day: it has given me a fantastic USP and a premium package to offer my customers.

I also employ help on a casual basis to help me out with the dog walking,

What have you learned? What do you wish you’d known a year ago?

Keep calm,:-)

Any more hints and tips for people?

You have to have a passion, a love and a will to succeed: if you have no self belief you will find it difficult to succeed.  My advice would be: Positive thinking every day. Enjoy your work – if it’s not like playing a fun game every day where you wake up all excited and raring to go, then you could possibly be in the wrong job. Get the right job, it’s never too late to change.

And … where do you see yourself and your business in a(nother) year’s time?

Wherever it takes me, I enjoy my work and my life, and wherever I go, I know I will be happy and that I will always make the right choices. I have another project which I am currently working on to do with advertising/marketing Pet Businesses, so we will have to wait and see what happens in the future.

Well, there’s a positive note to end on, and some good cheerleading for anyone considering changing their job to have a happier lifestyle! I look forward to hearing what happens over the next year!

Visit GGL Pet Services online at www.gglpetsupplies.com.

If you’ve enjoyed this interview, please see more small business chat, the index to all the interviewees, and information on how you can have your business featured.

What is justification?

Justification is the way in which your text is set out on the page. A margin is justified if all of the words on that margin are aligned vertically. For example, this article uses left justification: all of the lines of text start in the same place on the left, unless I manually indent them using tab or bullet points, and all of the ends of the lines present a ragged appearance on the right.

How do I set the justification in my Word document?

You will find the justification menu under the Home Tab, in the Paragraph Section – four little buttons with indications of what the text will look like:

You can see four little buttons, in order from left to right: left justification, centre justification, right justification, full justification.

To set the justification for text that you have already typed, highlight the text and press the appropriate button. To start typing in a particular layout, press the button, check that it’s gone orange, and then start typing.

Left justification

Left justification means that all of the lines of text are lined up on the left hand side, but are ragged on the right:

Full justification

Full justification is very common and does look neat, although it can have some issues, as we find when we try to type text in a column or table using this form of justification:

Right justification

Right justification can look a bit odd in a text (and can be confused with the right-to-left text direction, which would of course use this as standard rather than left justification). However, it is extremely useful if you want to line up a list of numbers or prices so they look lovely and neat. This works in tables and columns of course, too, and makes it so easy to make things look tidy.

Centre justification

Centre justification is hardly ever used in anything but a heading, a poem, maybe, or something with a special design like a menu. But if you want to do it, here it is. One thing you need to watch out for is that if you hit the enter key to make a new line in order to get the effect or layout that you want, Word will helpfully capitalise the first word on the next line for you (see circled text below). However, at least in Word 2007 and Word 2010, if you change this to lower case once, it will leave it on lower case the next time! Clever Word!

We’ve learned in this article about what justification is, the different kinds of justification, their advantages and disadvantages, and when you might want to use them.  I hope you’ve learned something useful here!

This is part of my series on how to avoid time-consuming “short cuts” and use Word in the right way to maximise your time and improve the look of your documents.

Please note, these hints work with versions of Microsoft Word currently in use – Word 2003, Word 2007 and Word 2010, all for PC. Mac compatible versions of Word should have similar options. Always save a copy of your document before manipulating it. I bear no responsibility for any pickles you might get yourself into!

Find all the short cuts here …

Sam’s another person who has organised her business around her family, and it’s always worth stressing what a good way to combine family and work this is – as long as you’re well organised and fairly strict about making room for family time. But it’s a combo we’ve seen working well time after time, as we meet more and more business owners. So let’s meet Samantha and find out how she got started a few years ago.

What’s your business called? When did you set it up?

Samantha Higgs Photography, set up in April 2010.

What made you decide to set up your own business?

I worked as an assistant photographer for many years and always planned to run my own photography business eventually. As a full-time mum, it has been easier to run my own business than to go out and work to someone else’s hours.

What made you decide to go into this particular business area?

Once the children came along, I wanted to be able to spend the weekends at home with them and be able to run a business that fitted in nicely with being a mum. I’d always liked the idea of selling my own prints so it seemed the ideal time to do this.

Had you run your own business before?

No, but my husband has run his own successful copywriting business for many years, so I’d picked up some tips and have had him on hand to help out. That’s only fair though, as I did all the photography for his website!

How did you do it? Did you launch full-time, start off with a part-time or full-time job to keep you going … ?

As the business has to fit around the kids and school I work mostly during school hours. As the children grow older I’ll have more flexibility.

What do you wish someone had told you before you started?

I’d been a photographer for many years, so I had the photographic skills, but I hadn’t appreciated how much time and effort all the other aspects of running a business – admin, marketing and so on – would take up.

What would you go back and tell your newly entrepreneurial self?

Invest in a comfy chair! If only I’d known that I’d spend as much time sitting in it typing as I would out taking pictures!

What do you wish you’d done differently?

I wish I’d got my website sorted sooner, rather than using photo sites as my main web presences. I’m excited about that as I’ve just launched it and I think it looks pretty good.

What are you glad you did?

I’m glad I spent time and effort on internet marketing, constantly updating my Facebook page rather than just making it and not using it: it has resulted in many sales.

What’s your top business tip?

Don’t ignore the power of social media and the internet.

How has it gone since you started? Have you grown, diversified or stayed the same?

Slow and steady. The main thing is getting my images in front of the right people, and I’ve had to experiment a lot to find the best ways of doing that. It’s a learning experience!

Where do you see yourself and your business in a year’s time?

I’d like to be selling more via the internet – especially through my new website – and craft fairs, and also perhaps have an exhibition or two of my work.

I like the give and take in this family with its mutual business support. I’ve definitely benefitted from my other half having run his own business before, as it’s a lot easier to explain those “must work all Saturday while you do the hoovering” times! I find the point about Facebook interesting – it doesn’t do that much for me, I have to say, in terms of orders, but I find that many crafty and arty people do get sales through their Facebook pages.

This coming year looks exciting, and I’m sure Samantha’s update interview will be full of good news!

Visit the Samantha Higgs Photography website at www.samanthahiggs.co.uk or email Samantha to find out more.

If you’ve enjoyed this interview, please see more small business chat, the index to all the interviewees, and information on how you can have your business featured.

Why do I need to add line numbers to a Word document?

I was inspired to write this post after my colleague Katharine O’Moore Klopf mentioned that she’d been asked to do this by the editors of a journal for which she was editing an article. Presumably they wanted to be able to refer to particular line numbers in their criticism of the piece.

Transcriptions will sometimes have line numbers, if they’re going to be discussed in detail, and we can probably all recall from our dim and distant pasts working on critiques of poems and plays which had 5, 10, 15 etc. in the margins.

So these are all reasons for adding line numbers to a Word document.

How NOT to add line numbers to a Word document

If you find the need to add line numbers, it’s kind of natural that you might think – oh, I’ll just make the whole document into a numbered list. Well, to do this you would have to put a return at the end of each line to make it into a new line. Then you would highlight the whole text and add numbered bullets. But, oh, look what happens:

The numbers push the lines across and they run over onto the next line; all possibility of right justification is lost; and heaven help you if you want to insert or delete any text once you’ve done it!

So, don’t do that.

How to add line numbers to a Word document – the correct way (Word 2007 and Word 2010)

Line numbering and its options can be found in Word 2007 and Word 2010 in the Page Layout tab, in the Page Setup area. There you will find Line Numbers:

Click on the arrow next to Line Numbers to bring up its Options menu:

It will automatically be set to None – choose Continuous and see what happens to your paragraphs …

Line numbers have automatically appeared, but the formatting of the text, its justification etc., remain as they were. This menu also allows to you to choose whether to restart the numbering at the beginning of each page, or each section, or to suppress the numbering for the particular paragraph your cursor is in.

Line numbering options in Word

You also have a number (sorry!) of options to choose from in order to customise your line numbering. You reach these options from the last item on the Line Numbering menu …

… although when you click on this option, you are taken into a general dialogue box for Page Layout:

and you need to click on Line Numbers… at the bottom, which will finally give you a list of options:

To go through the options in order …

• Add line numbers – this gives you the chance to add or remove them at this stage
• From text – the distance between the text and the number. Click on the arrows to choose the distance (I usually just use Auto)
• Count by – this allows you to display only every x number. I don’t think “Count by” is a particularly useful way to describe this, but scroll down to see it in action
• Numbering Restart each page / Restart each section / Continuous – this repeats the options you found on the first screen, but it’s useful to have them here if you’re generally messing around in the Page Layout menu and don’t want to go out of it to set your line numbering

Whatever you choose on here, click OK twice to get out of this dialogue box and the Page Layout one.

How do I produce a line number every five or ten lines?

You may remember from literature lessons at school that poetry and plays often have every 5th line marked. You can do this in Word by choosing that Count by option in the Line Numbering Options menu (see above for how to get to it).

Set the number to 5 …

… and as if by magic, when you return to your document after choosing OK – OK, you will find every fifth line numbered:

Working in Word 2003

In Word 2003 you will need to follow these menus: File – Page Setup:

Choose the Layout tab in the dialogue box and the Line Numbers button. Choose to Apply to the Whole document or This point forward. Click on Line Numbers:

Tick Add line numbering and choose to Restart each page/section and Continuous. Click OK twice to accept – in this dialogue box you also find the options Start at, From text and Count by that are explained above.

Thanks to Katharine O’Moore Klopf for the Word 2003 screen shots and instructions.

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This article has explained why you might want to add line numbers to your document, and how to do it. If you found this useful, please post a comment, share and like this article! Thank you!

This is part of my series on how to avoid time-consuming “short cuts” and use Word in the right way to maximise your time and improve the look of your documents.

Please note, these hints work with versions of Microsoft Word currently in use – Word 2003, Word 2007 and Word 2010, all for PC. Mac compatible versions of Word should have similar options. Always save a copy of your document before manipulating it. I bear no responsibility for any pickles you might get yourself into!

Find all the short cuts here …