However, when it comes to managing the different profiles and user accounts for article directories, Squidoo, Tumblr (the list goes on and on), it can become a pain.  You’re trying to keep the entities separate, so you’re constantly logging out and into the various sites.  If you’re extra paranoid, you’re probably clearing your cookies and cache each time to try to better cover your tracks.  In short, it’s a pain.

I’ve solved this dilemma for myself with a relatively low-tech solution.  Instead of trying to learn about profiles within my browser, I use Opera@USB for my online profiles.  Opera@USB is a version of the Opera web browser that’s meant to be run from a USB flash drive.  That is, it doesn’t have to be installed like a typical program.  Also, it’s free.

Although Opera@USB was intended to be used from flash drive, it’s perfectly happy simply running from a folder on your computer.  Because it’s not meant to be installed, it maintains all of its data (read:  cookies and cache!) within that folder.  This means, you can have another copy in another folder, and it’s fully self-contained as well with it’s very own cookies and cache.

This is great.  I have a Opera@USB folder for each of my entities that I need to maintain an online presence for.  It’s a modern, tabbed browser, and it reopens the tabs from your last session.  It can remember passwords, and effectively keep you logged in to most sites.  If I need to follow users on Twitter for my wife’s Spanish site, I just double-click to open that Opera@USB, I click the tab that Twitter is open on, and I’m ready to work.  I need to do very little logging in, no logging out, and I don’t even think about clearing cookies or cache.  Again, all is good in the world!

Despite these changes, I continued to go to my old dry cleaner even though it was less convenient.  It wasn’t because of the people there because I didn’t know any of them.  It wasn’t because of the service–to me, dry cleaning is a commodity.  It wasn’t for any particular reason, but I continued to go there.  And it wasn’t even that I had anything against the new closer option.  My wife used the new dry cleaner, and I often dropped things off or picked things up for her.  However, I continued to use my old dry cleaner.

One morning, I wanted to drop some clothes off before going into the office, and for the first time, I thought consciously about it.  It was ridiculous to go the the old, inconvenient cleaner when there was one right next to my office.  At that moment, I decided to make the switch.  I dropped my clothes off at the new dry cleaner, and I was told that they would be ready that evening.

When I went to pick up my clothes, I noticed something.  I noticed that this dry cleaner had something called an “Express Bag.”  My old dry cleaner had an express bag.  The way it worked at my old cleaner was that they had my name, preferences, and credit card info on file.  I could simply drop off that bag without having to explain things like “medium starch” or “folded, no hangers.”   Picking it up was equally painless.  With my credit card info on file, the payment would already be processed.  I just had to give them my name, they’d give me my bag, and I’d be on my way.

What stood out about the express bag at the new dry cleaner was that they charged $5 for it!  They would waive the $5 if your current bill was more than $25.  To me, charging for something that increases the amount of business I do with you is just plain ridiculous.  However, since my bill was more than $25, I asked for a bag and how it worked.  Their express bag came with a card attached where you told them your name and cleaning preferences.  I asked if they could keep my credit card info on file and charge it as needed.  They couldn’t.  However, I could set up an account, and they could charge my card monthly for my tab.  To do that, I would need to come back when the owner was there.

It was at this point that I realized why I had continued to go to my old dry cleaner for so long.  The old dry cleaner had removed a lot of the friction from the process, and made it super easy for me to do business with them.  I could just drop off my clothes, and pick them up.  I didn’t have to pay because they had already taken care of it.  They even had a night drop box, so I could drop my laundry off any time that was convenient for me.

Why Friction Builds Up

There are a number of reasons why our processes often have extra friction that could be removed.  One reason is thinking short term versus long term.  Why does this dry cleaner charge for the bags?  Probably because the bags aren’t cheap.  They are nice quality and very durable, and I’m sure the owner was thinking about how much each one costs and that they need to recoup that cost directly.  Problem is, this is short term thinking.  The goal is to remove friction, so your customer do more business with you.  The cleaner should try to give as many bags away as possible and be repaid through increased patronage.  Sure, they will lose on some customers, but they will gain on many more.  Typically, only people who plan to use it will request it.  Even if they wanted to limit the bags to their best customers, there are better ways of doing that.  They have a customer database that they could easily use to see who their repeat customers are, and they could offer a bag the next time the ideal client makes his or her next visit.

Another reason for excess friction in our business processes is that we “set it and forget it.”  That is, we have too many legacy processes.  How many businesses are using the same processes that they developed years ago without accounting for the fact that new technology could be used to improve those processes? “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” doesn’t work any more.  If your competitor has systems that make it easier for customers to do business with them, then your system IS broke!

How to Reduce the Friction

The most important way to reduce the friction in the customer’s buying process is to be proactive.  This means regularly reviewing and and consciously improving your systems.  At our service company, we put different areas of the business on a calendar to review every year.  For example, during April, we review our customer collections procedures, and during May we review our invoicing procedures.  You can do the same thing for your customer experience procedures.

Being proactive also means getting ideas by seeing what best-in-class competitors are doing.  You should mystery shop your competitors.  Perhaps there are peer groups or mastermind groups in your industry that you can join and share best practices with people who don’t compete directly with you.

Additionally, you should listen to your customers.  Your customers are the best source of knowledge to tell you what’s broken and how things could be improved.  I described to the new dry cleaner how the express bag worked at my old place.  He heard me, but he didn’t listen.  That is, they are not making improvements to their process based on the feedback I gave.  Your customers will often give you improvement ideas without you even having to ask, but you should ask, as well.  Remember that database that tells you who your best customers are?  The next time you have a chance to communicate with one of those ideal customers, you should ask questions.  You should get advice.  It can be in person, or it could be online.  It could be a short survey.  It doesn’t matter.  Just ask the question, and let your customers tell you how you can improve.

Finally, if you have employees, you need to empower them.  Why should I have to come back to set up an account when it’s convenient for the owner when there is a perfectly capable employee who could do the job then and there?  Empowering your employees (or your VAs) has more benefits than just helping your customers then and there.  It also empowers them to listen to and think about improvements to your customer experience processes.  It changes their role from being lowly peon to being valuable team member.

In summary, the more friction that you eliminate from the customer experience, the more business volume your customers will do with you.  So, which dry cleaner do I use?  I use the new one.  Even with the friction-free systems of the old dry cleaner, I can’t justify the the inconvenience of its location.  However, I will say that my volume of dry cleaning service is not as much as it used to be.  It’s just too painful to have to pull out my wallet each time!

Here’s how I realized that I even needed this tool.  It was Monday night.  My business partner, Mike, and I had set up some interviews for hiring a new Philippines-based content writer.  The first interview was set for 8:00am Tuesday Philippines time.  It was about 6:45pm Eastern time which meant that our first interview was in 15 minutes.  However, Mike, who lives in the Central time zone, was no where to be found on Skype.  I gave him a quick call on his cell phone:

Ricky:  Hey, Mike.  What's up?
Mike:   Nothing.  How's it going?
Ricky:  Good.  Where are you?
Mike:   At the grocery store grabbing a few things.
Ricky:  You remember our interviews, right?
Mike:   Yeah, they're tomorrow--Tuesday--right?
Ricky:  Uh, Tuesday Philippines time.  Monday night for us.  Like in 15 minutes.
Mike:   Oh, my bad.  I'll get out of here and be home in 5 minutes!

If you’re only dealing with people in the mainland US, it’s pretty easy to keep track of the four timezones.  However, when you deal with people in timezones that are very different, it can get difficult to keep track.  Since I live in the Eastern time zone, Mike lives in the Central time zone, and together, we work with outsourcers in the Philippines, managing the different time zones can get pretty hairy

The one tool I can’t live without is a world clock app for my iPhone.  Specifically, I use The World Clock by Andrei Kolev. At $1.99, unfortunately, it’s not free.  I’m not saying it’s the absolute best world clock program available, but I tried a few, and this was the first one I came across that met my specifications.

Every world clock app has the basic functionality that let’s you save a custom list of timezones and quickly see the current time in each.  Most of the apps I tried were city-based, meaning you make your custom timezone list by selecting a city within the desired timezone as opposed to picking the timezone itself.  However, different apps implement this differently.  The World Clock shines because it has a huge list of cities and towns.  It doesn’t just list one or two mega-cities from each time zone.  This means you can probably pick your exact city versus having to pick whatever metropolis happens to be in your same timezone. This may seem trivial, but if I live in Richmond, Virginia, I want my list to say “Richmond” not “New York.”  Even more, if you don’t live in one of the listed cities, you can choose the closest one and rename it.  A lot of the apps I tested didn’t let you do this.

Another cool feature of The World Clock is a visual map view.  Although I don’t use it a lot, it can be helpful in some cases.  Basically, this is a world map that quickly shows where it is day and where it is night.  The map highlights your list of cities, and this visualization can be helpful when working with people in timezones with 8+ hours difference.

Although the map is cool, the feature that sold me on this app is the Time Converter.  The limitation with most world clock apps is that they only show you the current time in each location.  However, we’re often trying to coordinate and schedule events in the future such as interviews.  The Time Converter allows you to do just that.  It allows you to choose a date and time in the future and see the day and time in each of your timezones.  You can even add that time & date to your calendar with a touch of a button.

Overall, this app satisfied my basic needs and met some needs (i.e., the Time Converter) that I didn’t even know I had.  It also includes alarms, but I’ve never used those.  It’s really easy to add new cities to your custom list, and that can be really helpful.  For example, I recently had to make a trip to Las Vegas, and I needed to schedule a programmer interview during that trip.  I quickly added Vegas to my list, and I could easily see times that were reasonable for me and the interviewee. With the large database of cities, the ability to rename them, the ability to see time conversions in the future, and the ease of use, I’m pretty happy with this app purchase.

Most people’s income is “earned” income meaning that they trade their time for money.  Of course, this is obvious if you have to punch a time clock and get paid by the hour, but it’s usually the case even for salaried workers.  The important characteristic of earned income is that, if you don’t work, you won’t get paid.  Of course, you may have some flexibility in your job where there is not a 100% correlation between hours worked and the size of your paycheck, but chances are, there is a very strong correlation or that there are limits on just how much you could get away with!  Please note that this earned income trap is not based on education level.  Even highly trained professions such as doctors and lawyers generally make their living via earned income.

By using entrepreneurship to achieve your desired lifestyle, we want to help you break the strong correlation between your time and your income.  Although most people talk about making more money, ultimately, people are really looking for more freedom in their lives.  People seek to that the freedom to do what they want to do, not what they have to do.  They want to control their own lives, and not have their lives controlled for them.  This freedom is found through time freedom and financial freedom.

The goal of LifestylePreneur is not to be a how-to guide.  There are simply too many ways to achieve time freedom and financial freedom for any one site to claim expertise over them all.  Plus, there are already tons of great resources out there that provide detailed specifics on almost anything that you could want to do in these areas.

Instead, the goal of LifestylePreneur is to fill in some of the gaps when it comes to actual execution.  We too have embarked on this journey.  And what we have realized is that, despite the seemingly easy-to-follow step-by-step instructions, there are still a multitude of nuances and stumbling blocks.  This is the case whether you’re trying to build an online business or a brick-and-mortar.  This is the case whether you’re trying to pay down your consumer debt or get financing from a bank.  This is the case whether you’re trying to leverage your time by hiring a virtual assistant in the Philippines or trying to take control of your email inbox.  The list goes on and on (and on and on and on…)!  We are trying many of the same things that you are, and we want to share with you our experiences, our successes, and the things we learn along the way.

With that, we welcome you to LifestylePreneur.com.  We hope that you will find our content useful and that you will become a contributing member of our community.