I’ve spent the last 5 days in the middle of Vietnamese nowhere on the back of a motorbike… In places that are so far removed from ‘civilisation’ you feel like a movie star wherever you go (and make young children cry, simply because you look so monsterous).

The ‘Easy Riders‘ are a group of Vietnamese guys who embrace branding like no one else in this country. If there is one thing about Vietnam, its the ability to go to a market and have every stall sell THE SAME THING for THE SAME PRICE… Every opportunity to be different is ignored or overlooked. You quickly realise that the concept of brands and differentiation are not innate, but taught – and communism doesn’t seem to have led to a nation of innovators.

But the Easy Riders (perhaps helped by spending several years shacked up with US soldiers while the country was blown apart), get it.

The concept is simple, your pack is strapped to the back of a 125cc motorbike, you are thrown on in front of it and the person in complete control of your life takes the handle bars… Then your hoon off into the middle of nowhere, on roads that are sometimes so pot holed, you’d be mistaken for thinking they are recreation of a war zone.

Along the way, you visit the people who make basically everything you can buy… And it’s not quite how you imagined. From insence sticks to silk, every tiny detail is painfully worked on by hand. Quite literally from trying individual pieces of silk thread together before weaving them into the fabric that goes to make your wedding dress, to harvesting and drying the rubber that goes into numerous products to satisfy our hunger for consumption.

We met a woman today who produces (by hand) thousands of insence sticks per day… Each bundle sells for ten cents. We tried to pay her a dollar for 3 bundles and she wouldn’t hear allowing that to happen. The honesty both appalls and humbles you.

Earlier, we sang Karaoke at a bar where I took on a local chap in a dance off. The entire Vietnames crowd had my back because I think they live by the notion that ‘White men cant dance’ (FYI, I wasted him). We played the bamboo piano with an elder in a tribal village that was preparing for a feast and helped them grind rice by hand. We visited other villages where we high-fived children who stroked our arms in delight and commented that our skin wasn’t so bad, while their parents looked on smiling at our attempts at Vietnamese. We dodged dogs and cows who treat the road as their bedroom and share the Vietnamese people’s confidence that being hit by traffic is a matter best left to fate, not practicality… We even experienced a motorbike crash that left my mother on crutches (and dying to get back on her motorbike).

We hung out with a guy at his house when it poured so hard our drivers couldn’t see. He showed us his rice wine brewery, pigs and posed for photos with us while his son played computer games in the shack they lived in. We bargained for bananas, drank 3 litres of Vietnamese wine and heard stories of such misery that I don’t think our brains quite got it. Our guides have lived lives where hunger so intense that sleep is impossible and dangerous occupations are simply the only option for survival. They took us to where they fought in the war, they told us of friends and family they lost to it, of a decade of starvation.

The Easy Riders guide you through their country with a pride you find difficult to understand – given their history and the fact that it has caused most of them decades of struggle and even today, has an economy that means none of them will ever be able to leave its borders. However as they lead you further into the Ho Chi Minh Trail and you find yourself time and time again confronted with people who laugh and chatter while they perform monotonous, manual tasks, you start to realise that maybe happiness is just an attitude and we, in the West are in dire need of changing ours.

If you come to Vietnam, don’t take the comfortable route. There are few places in the world where you will be welcomed with such open arms, and where you will learn as much about the futility of war, the power humans have to overcome extreme odds and the simple pleasure of a smile. 5 days feels like a lifetime and you start to think your life will be forever changed by the lessons you learned while carrening through the Vietnamese country side. When it comes to saying goodbye, you truly feel like you are parting with old friends.

If you have any sense of work ethic DO NOT head to this site. It will consume your entire day.

However, this is the girls of Decisive Flow through the decades.

The 1960′s,

Emma led the nose stud revolution…

…while Nat geeked it up

and alex….

The 1970′s,

We started a girl band

The 1980′s,

we mixed it up again

I have just received my first ever ‘get writing you slacker’ request from a reader. Thanks Amy, I feel appreciated. Anyone who feels the need to demand blog posts from me, feel free. Sometimes I need the ego boost ;)

A couple of close friends and I have, in the past year, started thinking about kids (I know, it’s that weird clucky thing women get). We have decided that when we have children, we hope to all be living around each other, in the same neighbourhood so as to share childcare. We are all driven individuals and none of us wants to sacrifice our careers, but all of us want to spend as much time as possible with their kids. So we came up with a crafty strategy where we would have (hopefully) 6 parents around. Each parent would be responsible for 1 day of childcare a week and look after all kids (This could be one or two adults, depending on how many children are created).

This means, we are all able to work at least 4 days a week (if we want) and get some good kid time.

The concept needs tweaking but is heavily based on the idea that it takes a community to raise a child, and our belief that children need lot of parent time. It is also based on the idea of the money-free economy.

These things become more important to me and others as we rebel against the consumer driven culture and the need to earn as much as possible simply to afford all the rubbish we want to buy. In the past few months, I’ve seen more and more non money related events popping up. This is a cool, if slightly long tail orientated development and I find it really exciting.

The bestest are:

The big Schwop

The Big Schwop managed to attract a LOT of interest fromt he media and Wellingtonians. The basic principle being bring your cool, good quality stuff and get different cool, good quality stuff.

They are basically starting a designer store without the money, and we all love it.

Book Mooch

I love books and I love owning them. But seriously, once you have read them once or twice, do you really need them? This is a follow on from the traditional book fair, and is once again a matter of swapping your old books for new ones.

Lets get Schwopping!

I was sitting in a cafe this morning watching people come and go and had to laugh at the door.

It was one of those doorways with two doors that both connected at the middle, one was locked, the other wasn’t and there was no sign indicating this state of affairs.

So everyone pushed the locked door first, then when they realised it wasn’t open, went for the unlocked one.

Every single person had a red face when they entered the cafe, and looked embarrassed that they were so DUMB they didn’t know which door was locked.

For anyone that thinks usability is stupid, let this be a lesson to you. When you make something unintuitive, people don’t blame you, they blame themselves. They actually feel stupid. And since that is not a great feeling, the chances of them trying again are slim to none.

I often get asked “How do you get new business?”

I think it goes like this for me:

• Blogging: I’m not joking. Some of you people who sit back there laughing at my inability to type and spell eventually start working with me. This has become particularly apparent in the past few months when I changed around a few things and did some experiments. These projects are really good because we generally spend a lot of time talking about neat, interesting things and the businesses who start chatting normally have pretty similar values and thoughts on life to me and we get some really good conversations going (and good websites made).
• Current customers recommended us: These are cool too. When someone comes to you because someone they know really liked working with us, it sets a nice environment of trust which really does lead to a smooth project.
• Past experience: People like the interaction design I did at PlanHQ and often hunt me down because they enjoy using it and think it looks and works really nicely. Most of these people have similar styles to me in terms of design, which means we click pretty quickly
• People I Know who recommend us: People like Julia, and Silverstripe who are super awesome at what they do and want to work with us on the bits we do best. I’ve enjoyed working with these guys heaps and it’s very cool to see a project with a larger scope from start to finish

We’ve never advertised as such and I definitely never want to. I think most of our ‘lead generation tools’ (theres some biz lingo for you) are fairly mundane, but how cool is it how much our blog contributes?

The funny thing is, in the past few months I’ve been experimenting with a few more ‘out there’ posts on management and various other things, which I kind of knew wouldn’t be everyones cup of tea… But the opposite has really happened, the more focused I get on what we really think, and how our business operates (I’m really just the mouthpiece for all of us), the more I get to meet and be introduced to the kind of people I get very excited about meeting (sorry old friends for all the gushing I do).

That has reinforced my belief that you shouldn’t try to appeal to everyone, but focus in on what you really want to do and appeal heaps to the small portion who think the same way as you do. It has also reinforced my belief that everything you do is marketing (from hanging out with the cast of an Arts Festival events and talking about business to having the boyfriend of someone you work with get very excited about the tools you use and pass this onto to everyone he talks to) and as long as you know exactly hwat you are about and stick with it, it’s actually very simple to attract the kind of work you like.

I just took a week off customer work to get our accounts up to date. It wasn’t what I wanted to do this week but I really didn’t have a choice and it made me realise a lot about organisation. I am a VERY organised person normally, I like to keep everything (including my accounts) really simple and up to date. However businesses being as they are, ours never really stood a chance and looking at them was enough to draw a tear to my eye. They were like a complete disaster zone with tonnes of random non- work related expenses running through the company, deposits that didn’t match any invoices, shortcuts that were taken when we were cash poor, all sorts of things that should never have been done and that caused me to waste a week of my life to sort out.

Since I took over the company, I have set everything up afresh to start from scratch so I can leave behind all our legacy mistakes and go forward in a clean, organised way. I’ve got a new bank account, new accountant, new accounts for most things and am ensuring from now on, it’s all done properly. It made me start thinking about people who were just starting up and advice I would give them to get set up.

Get business bank accounts – and USE THEM

DO IT! Don’t start using your personal cards or use a combination. Get one credit card, one eftpos account and one savings account. DO NOT USE ANY OF THESE FOR ANY OTHER REASON THAN BUSINESS. Use your savings account to hold your GST payments based on your monthly accounts so that you never get a fright when it comes to paying it.

Choose a good bank and LIKE YOUR BANK MANAGER. They are there to help and should help (I love mine). Choose a good bank too. I like National Bank because they have a series of talks and seminars tailored to small businesses and also because I like my bank manager.

Get an accounting package

Sign up for an accounting system immediately. I use Xero and although it’s still pretty new, it is definitely getting very slick. Once you have your accounting system, do your accounts weekly. It’s just not worth getting behind, you lose money and waste time. Having your accounts permanently up to date also helps you plan and forecast and see when you may have quiet times and when you may need to look at boosting your sales. Spending a couple of hours a week saves you an entire week later and means you ALWAYS know what shape your business is in.

Talk to the IRD

I didn’t know this, but turns out when ou start a business, you can get someone from the IRD to come and chat to you and explain what your responsibilities are and walk you through our tax system in NZ. It’s a free service so why not? I spent years utterly confused about quite simple stuff because I never took an hour out of my day to sit down with someone and have it all explained.

You can then happily set up your GST payments (GO 2 MONTHLY – if you pretend you can sort yourself out enough to pay every 6 months you are lying to yourself, I know you could be earning interest on that money, but it’s just not worth it.

Get an accountant you like and trust

I’ve known my new accountant for a long time and while the old ones were good (and the main reason for leaving them was to simply have a clean break) it’s quite different having an accountant who you know REALLY cares about your business and who actively offers advice for how to save money, simplify your business and ensure you are not paying too much tax and whos first question is always “how is it all going?”

I would also recommend getting an accounts person who you pay a lot less to help you with your weekly accounts. Initially it’s a good idea to sort them out yourself so you know what you’re doing, but after a while, you are best sticking to what you do best and let someone else sort your financial side and just look at the results.

Get to know a good lawyer

Especially if you are getting into business with someone else (regardless of how well you think you know them) You save heaps of time and money later on if you get the simple stuff sorted initially. Once again, get one you trust and who cares about you (I know it sounds weird but small business is VERY different from big business and work becomes personal and you need to know their top priority is minimising your stress levels). I know when everything is exciting at the start getting all legal on each other seems a bit of a downer, but I know so many examples of people missing the simple stuff and it all ending in tears.

Use iPayroll

Sorry everyone who doesn’t live in NZ, but this is the best online tool I’ve ever found. Actually it’s not even the online tool part. Please overlook the ugly interface and kind of awkward usability (What I’d give to get my hands on it and sort it out!!!), within half an hour of signing up, I received a PHONE CALL from their sales person and am now meeting with them on Monday to run through how it all works. Basically for $9 a week, you enter your timesheets and they do EVERYTHING ELSE from calculating holiday pay to filing your PAYE reports. That’s like the best $9 you’ll ever spend.

The other reason is so that you don’t end up like us and have a year’s worth of overdue PAYE. Just get it sorted from day one, it’s uber simple.

Keep ALL your receipts in a folder

Don’t throw them all in one big box or anything, you often need to access old invoices and receipts especially when you live in New Zealand and both our cellphone companies make dodgy phones that break every 5 minutes. Keep one file for every month. It’s also cleaner and tidier and gives you a zen feeling or organisation.

Get employment contracts for employees

Once again, at the beginning it seems silly, at the end it doesn’t. This gives everyone security and means everything is outlined and everyone is on the same page regarding job descriptions etc.

Which reminds me, stick to your job descriptions. I know small business require a lot of flexibility, but if you hire someone for one reason, don’t start them doing other stuff. They do not own the business and they are there to further their career, not do your odd jobs.

That’s about it for today :) PHEW!

I order all my photos through Digitalmax. It used to be awesome! Cheap photos (like a third of the cost of elsewhere), easyish to use, convenient. Done.

Then they got big (I assume?) did a redesign that makes the site look way prettier but it doesn’t work anymore! I wrote them a polite email in October last year, figuring the least I could do as a usability and interaction person was help out a fellow NZ company with my thoughts… Especially about the photo purchase process which is so badly designed I end up having to go through it at least 3 times every time I order photos and actually gave up between October and now (I thought they may have fixed it) and the fact that their photo editing tools don’t even work for me any more.

I never heard back and the site hasn’t changed. It’s so frustrating to see a company go from causing upheaval in the market to falling behind (All other photo retailers have basically caught up in terms of cost and ease of use). And in several hours, once I finally get this batch of photos printed, they will lose a customer they have had since virtually the beginning.

It’s a real tragedy.

We love everything about Medrecruit (even the seemingly endless amount of adoring fans around town who can’t think of one bad thing to say about the company). So it’s super to see that my tip to Springwise led to Medrecruit hitting today’s newsletter!

Medrecruit recruits doctors based on lifestyle – you like skiing? Then head to a hospital in the mountains, surfing more your style? Well, beach towns are looking for doctors… It’s such a cool concept, and Sam and Skip are so devoted to the concept they live and breathe it.

Congrats Medrecruit, we’re liking this trend of working on very successful sites :)

I have just arrived back from the Gold Coast, spouting new Aussie phrases like ‘Thanks Darl’ and ‘too easy’ and slowly recovering from the terrifying roller coasters and water parks they have there (Turns out my father is insane and insisted we faced death at least 3 times on the Green Room). But enough about me and my despair at leaving 30 degree heat for Wellington finest… I had an interesting experience buying travel insurance before I left.

I went to all the usual suspects, State, Southern Cross, Mike Henry, then found this hot little site that makes buying travel insurance fun. It’s funny how complicated normal insurance seems compared to this. When I need to find something, I don’t need to read the fine print – it’s under the main tab. I can quickly calculate how much it’s going to cost, without signing my life away or going through a convoluted process, I also like how you get a quote from the font page – which is the main reason why you’d ever visit a travel insurance website.

Nicely done… But since I’d never heard of them before, I didn’t run with it. Now I feel stupid.

This is a really good example of a company overthrowing the old timers and redefining how to shop online, i.e not just shoving a form on the website and hoping for the best, but supporting and aiding the entire sale, without your customer having to resort to picking up the phone. Well done.

If you’re thinking about taking your product or service out of Wellington and into the big, wide world, or if you are already exporting, then we’d love to have you come along to a session Tim and I are running on Going Global from the Web.

We’ll be talking about our experiences taking PlanHQ to the world from the web, what we’ve done to attract 70% of our customers from overseas and how we continue to support them. We’d love to chat to you about what you’re up to and share the tricks we’ve learned about successfully marketing ourselves to an international audience.

Date: 14 August, 5-6pm
Cost: Free
Read the PDF: PlanHQ – going global from the web
Signup via email: events@wellingtonchamber.co.nz