Hello All!

We have recently redesigned our website for our business Control Yours. And as we went through and created new images, we also changed our pricing structure. We went a couple of different routes before we decided on the final one (if you want to see it, click on the details tab after you click on the link above).

So…Here are some vector boxes that were trial and error. Have them, use them, enjoy them…Just don’t sell them! Click on the sticker below for your download to start.

Until next time…Have an Awesome Day!
~Chais Meyer

I started this blog with the mindset that I would tell everyone about the good, the bad, & the dirty of business (starting a business specifically). This blog slowly developed to much more than that. It started containing stories about our life and our connections with businesses and people. The tough part about sharing situations from OUR life is what people in our life think of when they read a story that may have to do with them (or at least a situation that involved them). And let’s face it…There is irony in honesty! Most people can’t handle the truth.

If I choose to be completely honest about any situation or real life example, some part of me chooses not to care about how others (the people that are in the stories) are affected or what they’re feeling. If I’m not completely honest with myself or you, why even have a blog in the first place? I’m not the national media that filters what they do or don’t say (sugarcoating or distorting the truth). In fact, I despise national media just for that reason. I am sharing my true situations with you, no matter what the comfort level.

So…for any or all of you out there that would prefer not to read a story that references you or a situation that involves you, it may be best if you stop reading from here on out. This blog is about my wife and I, and how we go through OUR lives, personally and professionally.

For Everyone Else…
…Have an Awesome Day & we’ll talk soon!
~Chais Meyer

When we go through life, every positive situation that happens with individuals or groups of people (AKA Businesses) helps build bridges that connect us together. Social Networkers (among other types of people) know that this connection is extremely powerful and sometimes even leads us to places or people we would never imagine.  We hear about people that burn bridges (sometimes on a weekly or daily basis) and these people are eventually left alone (in every aspect of the word). This brings a question to my mind, What does it take to keep our bridges strong?

Some relationships, business and professional, can be very poisonous to our life and they can actually harm us more than they can help us. In these cases, I completely agree with nuking the bridges and burning all connections to the poisonous people. The majority of the time however, I have noticed that it really pays to invest in people and see how we can help benefit them to help create a solid connection. Maybe that’s the answer for keeping the bridge strong (helping others, without bad intent).

I’ve been working with the company Computer Hardware for the past year as a contract employee. Whenever they needed assistance on random projects, I would help them out and bill them at a rate of $15 an hour. For them, this was a blessing, having extra help when needed but not requiring me to be on the payroll and to be looked at as an employee. Also, I ONLY billed them for the time I actually worked. Probably one of the most efficient business relationships that a business owner can build.

I’ve recently been asked to help Computer Hardware in a way that could dramatically impact their future and my wife’s and my short term life. They’ve asked me to assist them as the Head of the education sales for the state of Nebraska. Why is this such a good opportunity? Several Reasons:

• Because of the money they will be paying me - It is not a huge amount in its own right but it does include 20% commission (of all profits) from  every sale I make.
• Because of what I’ve learned in the last year - I’ve learned to batch my tasks and get a lot more things done in less time.
• Because I make the rules within the education sales - I decide what I focus on, I decide on the hours I work, I decide on the best solutions for the Educators problems.
• Because of the potential for long term reward - I will get rewarded with a part ownership or a percentage of my final results. (an investment of my time and creativity)

What this equals for me is an opportunity that will pay me well (subsidizing the hours I would’ve been working to pay the bills), while putting very little time in (comparatively, it will be between 10-20 hours a week), and giving me the freedom to focus my remaining daily energies on our other businesses that need to have time spent on them in order to grow. Because I’ve kept this business relationship strong, I’ve been given an opportunity that will put me months ahead of schedule of where my businesses would have been (since I can now invest the extra time needed). [Side note: I also have to the responsibility to avoid abusing or damaging any/all of the connections that will come along with this. I will be meeting with hundreds and possibly thousands of educators during this 1 year time period and these connections could very well benefit my own businesses.]

By helping to benefit others, I in turn will be rewarded. It has paid to keep this bridge strong, just think about that the next time you want to avoid helping someone in your life.

Work Hard, Work Smart, Work for Your Future.
Oh ya…Have an Awesome Day!
~Chais Meyer

As I was running today, I was thinking about the glorified 6 Pack (or 8 for the select few).
Am I talking about beer or soda? (No, that’s why I am running in the first place!)

I am talking about societies definition of what amazing health is, the six abdominal muscles that show because of a low total body fat. WHAT!?! I HAVE TO HAVE LOW ‘TOTAL’ BODY FAT!?!
I thought I could just do sit ups to lose the fat right on my stomach area, That sucks.

I’m assuming this is a lot of people’s reactions when they find out the cold hard truth about our bodies. We get rewarded everywhere on our body (this includes our stomachs, and our asses), when we treat our whole body right (eating healthy, working out, etc.).

A sad thing is (or Great thing, depending on your outlook), this philosophy is everywhere in our world, even in business. We can’t just ‘trim the fat’ in one area of business, we can try, but other areas will suffer. In order to have total business health, we need to look at the business in whole and make sure that nothing is being left out.

Let’s create a small example to make my point (this is a real life example, minus the fitness analogies):
We decide to ramp up sales with Control Yours (our website development business), so we put all of our energy and focus on reaching and closing on new clients. We collect their money, start developing websites for them, and the sales side of our business seems to be ‘firming and toning up’ (at least the sales muscles under our total business fat). We put our other areas of our business on the back burner and focus on just making sales as strong and fit as it can be. The next thing we notice is that a few of our clients want to modify their current plans they have with us, no problem right? WRONG! We’ve been so focused on building our sales muscle that we forgot to work on our customer management muscle, in fact it’s almost deteriorated.

What do we have to do? Just like every other fat person out there that realizes doing sit ups isn’t changing their overall look, START FROM THE BEGINNING. Get the whole system in shape at the same time. And that is where we are right now, building, stretching, toning, and increasing our overall business heart rate. It is a very great feeling, gaining control again (even though we didn’t realize we lost control until we looked in the mirror and saw our business fat folding over our business jeans…that is some funny stuff!).

Don’t forget to take care of even the small aspects of your business. EVERYTHING leads to total health.

Get your cardio on & Have an Awesome Day!
~Chais Meyer

I was watching a video on TED.com today where Tim Farris talks about smashing fear and ‘how to feel like the incredible hulk’.

See this video below:

His talk started to get me thinking about how, so many times in my life I end up over-complicating things (as many of us do). And It is really interesting to me that we believe ‘what we have always done, has to be the right way’, just because we don’t know another way. Like…Who says having a cell phone with the ability to check/respond to my emails actually makes me more productive? Maybe I’m just wasting more time than anything. If I set up a one hour segment to read and respond my email a day (and that’s it), maybe I would get a lot more done because I would be focused to accomplish the task at hand.

I just love that Tim’s thoughts and ideas have helped me see that not everyone is supposed to follow the status quo, and not everyone has to fit into a mold. Identify your loves to live them, identify your fears and conquer them. I think we all could get a little inspiration from Tim.

Have an Awesome Day!
~Chais Meyer

…we started doing things with our day (small things) that could really change the way we live our life?

Like:

• Stop watching standard TV programs during the day and replace that same time with informational videos from TED.com.
• Stop eating on the go, and replace that with making meals together and investing in relationships while we eat.
• Start to writing letters again instead of only communicating through our standard form of electronic communication (email, facebook, twitter, etc.).
• Deciding to actually listen to people for one day & not be so concerned with having our own voice be heard.
• Befriending an individual that people seem to avoid, just to get their side of life.
• Dedicate an entire week to donating our free time to help others and/or organizations out.
• Take a summer job in another state (or country) just because it’s something you want to do.

We only have one life, so why don’t we do what we want to with it? We have to decide what type of person we want to be (and hopefully we won’t look back on our life and say “What did I do with my life?”). Live with inspiration!

I love to talk to my Friend Zach Liibbe about what he is doing in his life. He inspires me by never letting fear get the best of him and actually doing the things he wants to do. When someone like Zach talks about spending his summer taking a tracking course just for fun, and spending a month assisting at a wilderness treatment camp , he is showing us the types of things that we can & should do with our own lives to make the most of it.

Another person that inspires me to live with excitement is Mike Nyffeler. By surrounding ourselves with these types of people in our life, we can see how goals can become reality. Because of this, my wife & I have decided to move to Key West, Florida for a month and work remotely, because we can! Our businesses our being built to be operated anywhere, so why not ‘operate them from anywhere’ (especially a place as gorgeous as Key West)?

If we don’t spend our lives enjoying our talents, living for our dreams, or working for more, where does that leave us? I always challenge myself to be the best that I can be, and I want to challenge you! Make your own list of things you might be able to do or change for this summer and make it a reality. Who says you can’t work in Hawaii for the summer, at a job you might love? Just because you live in Kearney, NE (or whatever that place is that seems boring to you right now), doesn’t mean you have to work their for the next 4 months. Call around and make your own life happen, don’t expect something to just ‘fall in your lap’.

We’ll be pushing ourselves, we hope you do the same!
Have an Awesome Day!
~Chais & Shawna Meyer

I’m working on my blog today and I created a fun download image that I am going to use with WP-Download-Monitor. This specific download monitor is designed for WordPress (if you have your own blog or site with WordPress, it works amazing). If you don’t have or use WordPress, You can still use this image on any other website or blog (as long as you know basic HTML code & if it fits the style that you’re looking for that is.

I hope you enjoy it and if you have any questions about how to make wp-dowload-monitor work with your version of WordPress, let me know. I will send you some screen shots of my settings.

Have an Awesome Day!
~Chais Meyer

Oh ya…Here is the download link for this graphic (almost forgot).

I was talking with my business partner today David Lano about how we have been putting 10 - 15 hours a week into one of our businesses (Control Yours), and how that would be considered part time or less than part time. Normally when you invest only a small percentage of time into something (a hobby, business, relationship, etc.) you can’t put 100% of your focus on it. And not putting 100% in immediately sounded like a negative thing with us, like we weren’t trying hard enough or something, but was it really like that?

As we dug deeper into this topic we realized that if we would have put 100% of our focus on this one business (going after sales everyday, Building a lot of websites right away, etc.) we could have very well damaged ourselves more than we were helping ourselves.

With our business Control Yours, the online technology business that it is, there are a lot of little things that need to be just right before we jump the gun on other things. An example would be that we just found and are working out some kinks with managing our customer’s monthly subscription payments (being able to downgrade or upgrade our customer’s subscription services fluidly and easily for the our customers and us). If we would have sold 100 websites in the first month we were in business, it would have been a nightmare to transfer all the subscriptions to our new customer management system (mainly for our customers). Looking at this example, we see that we couldn’t have noticed this problem immediately and it had to be noticed by time and testing. Working part time on this business is allowing us to build a very secure and steady foundation (all marketing, financial, investment, and management aspects), and being that a lot of businesses fail because they don’t have a solid foundation…this seems pretty important!

Working for our businesses part time has actually allowed us to grow in business maturity and not be rushed into making rash decisions that might have haunted us for a long time. In that way, I am so glad that we have done things the way we have.

Don’t be afraid to start up slow…As long as you are progressively becoming with your life and your business, you’re always moving forward!
Have an Awesome Day!
~Chais Meyer

This post is an update about a recent troublesome chat support experience I had.

I received a phone call from Mvelopes yesterday, to my surprise! It turns out that someone inside of Mvelopes happened to see something on the internet about my blog post. For me it was mixed emotions for a couple of reasons… 1) I was stoked that they were getting back to me & that the web (my blog post) has enough power to communicate a message to people and/or companies if they aren’t closing their eyes to it. 2) It was sad that it took my spreading the ‘not so positive word’ around the web to get some attention from their business.

However it worked out, I finally received my phone call from a guy named Nick Thomas of Mvelopes. He straightened things out with me (& I with him), and we had a good 15 minute talk. It turns out that Mvelopes did just drop the ball on the initial communication with me and then also on the secondary communication  (My feedback response about my chat experience & them not giving me a much needed phone call). He also told me that Mvelopes does have an actual live feedback option, and it is using uservoice! It is only accessible to members and not people that are potentially going to sign up for the product (which I would like to see change). I don’t know about you, but I would like to see what a service has and doesn’t have before I commit $40 a month.

Nick was willing to take all blame and also let me share (in my opinion) actual constructive ideas that ‘real customers’ might be thinking about but not saying.

Am I in love with Mvelopes again? I think I will have to give it some time to see if things actually do change on the support side as well with the feedback management side. I would really like to see some of their customer’s ideas become a reality (possibly changing how their service looks and/or feels). Will I stick with the Mvelopes product? I will for at least 90 days…Nick gave me a 90 day window as free service because I cared enough about business to write about it on my blog, I’ll let you know after the 90 days are up.

If I was to say one thing that would be the most important to me (in my opinion as a customer) to Mvelopes, that would be…”Communication (internally and externally) determines what type of foundation your company/business is built on. Make it Strong!” You can quote me if you want to (I’ve always wanted to have a quote that I made up !

Have an awesome day everyone!
~Chais Meyer

I had the most frustrating day (or at least a VERY frustrating 30 minutes) on Friday of this week. I had some questions about some features (not even technical questions) about an online product my wife and I are using called “Mvelopes“. If you haven’t heard of it, it is an online financial tracker/manager that links up with your online bank accounts and allows you to create a budget in a much friendlier way than on paper.

With that introduction, it sounds like I am in love with this product…I was! I don’t hate this product or company because of my horribly frustrating ‘chat support’ experience, I am just disappointed in how they operate their business in the customer support area. I am sharing my whole chat experience with you so that you can hopefully assist in solving a problem that needs to be solved…How do we make chat support better? And by “better”, I mean…Faster, Friendlier, more humanistic and less like robots, along with putting a cherry on top of the way you feel about that company and/or service.

My Mvelopes Chat Support Experience (it all starts with me wanting to get two easy questions answered and it all goes very wrong):
Chat Supports Starts (Green = Shawn [the support employee], Red = ME [the guy who wants fast, easy support], Blue = My side notes.)

Shawn: Hi, my name is Shawn. One moment while I review your question. When your chat is complete, please provide feedback about your experience at  http://tinyurl.com/dff4w5
Chais Meyer: Please let me know when you’re ready to chat. (I said this because I’ve experienced chat support with this same company before and they don’t seem to respond until you say something or wait 10 minutes)
Shawn: So that I can better assist you with this, please enable support authorization. (”Alright”, I think, “He is ready to dominate my question credit card payments, and then we’ll move onto memorized transactions [a transaction that repeats itself]” )
Shawn: To enable Support Authorization, please follow these steps.
Shawn: 1) At the very top of the application, click File, Preference.
Shawn: 2) Click on the Support Authorization tab.
Shawn: 3) Click the bullet next to the “Authorize View.” Click OK.
Chais Meyer: donme (I’m so excited to get this support session complete that I am mis-spelling my words)
Chais Meyer: done
Chais Meyer: hello. (I say “hello” because I have been waiting for 3 minutes for a response back…He must be helping many people at one time.)
Shawn: One moment while I look into that for you….
Shawn: Thank you for your patience. (What a sweet guy, this is like an apology for taking a long time!)
Shawn: Please wait for the Deposit transaction to appear in New Transaction pane.
Shawn: Once it appear please assign both the transaction to Credit Card Payment envelope. (this probably doesn’t make very much since to you because I asked him a question about memorizing a certain transaction and a specific way to record my credit card payments.)
Chais Meyer: ok. (one question down, yeah! The next one will be a breeze!)
Shawn: Are there any other questions I can answer for you?
Chais Meyer: If I want to make a payment online and have mvelopes memorize that transaction (showing that it will automatically be a pending transaction every month) how do I do that?
Shawn: It has a recurring payment or just a one time payment. (uh…what?)
Chais Meyer: it is recurring but I don’t want envelopes to pay it for me. I want to do it manually.
Shawn: Okay.
Shawn: You can manually pay it online.
Chais Meyer: right. (…uh, isn’t that what I said above?)
Shawn: Are there any other questions I can answer for you?
Chais Meyer: how do I have mvelopes ‘memorize’ that monthly transaction? (Okay, I’ll ask the same question in a different way, he’ll get it this time. I was probably too confusing last time.)
Chais Meyer: I know I can pay it online. But I want to be reminded to pay it online.
Chais Meyer: Unless there is an easier way for me to handle these electronic payments.
Shawn: I understand your concern. (Do you?)
Shawn: I wish I could help you with this. Bill Pay no longer have Reminders or E-Bill auto-payment. (an actual answer about reminders…right on)
Chais Meyer: When did that stop?
Shawn: A year back.
Chais Meyer: Can I set up a ‘memorized’ transaction with pending or upcoming bills? (So, let’s ask the same question for the 3rd time.)
Chais Meyer: are you there? (no response for 4 minutes)
Shawn: One moment please….
Shawn: Yes you can create a manual transaction.
Chais Meyer: will it repeat? (Question asked for the 4th time)
Shawn: No. (Is this an answer to my question?)
Shawn: You can do it manually every time. (Okay, so I can input every bill every month to have it show up as a pending transaction. How about being able to choose a check box that says “repeat monthly”)
Chais Meyer: OK, that is what I want. Is there anyway to make a transaction repeat every month without using bill pay? (Ask the question again for the 5th time in a different way…I’m a little frustrated but we are getting there!)
Shawn: Yes, you can create a manual transaction.
Shawn: To Create a manual transaction:
Shawn: 1. From the New Transactions register – Navigate to the Pending Transactions section at the bottom of the New Transactions screen.
2. Click “New” in the menu bar.
3. This will create a new line with editable fields. Enter the Payee, Payment or Deposit amount, respective account and a Note if required. Select the envelope and click “Save.”
Shawn: 4. One pending transaction will be created under the Pending Transactions window. You will need to select it and click on ‘Clear’.
Please make sure that you don’t delete these transactions. Once you delete the transaction it will be deleted from the envelope.
Shawn: That’s it. (an answer to a question that I don’t care about, manual transaction doesn’t equal repeating transaction)
Chais Meyer: will this manual transaction repeat every month? (6th time)
Shawn: No.
Chais Meyer: That is what I want. Is there a solution for that? (7th time)
Shawn: Thank you for your feedback. We appreciate any feedback as we endeavor to continuously improve and grow. This communication has been forwarded for review to the appropriate channels.
Shawn: In the future, you can submit enhancement requests and other software suggestions directly through the application itself. Click on Help, Product Suggestions. (uh…so, the standard protocol is to disconnect when you aren’t understanding the question? VERY FRUSTRATED)
Chais Meyer: That was not feedback. It was a fucking question. (I should not have cursed! That was rude of me, my wife keeps telling me I need to lay of the “F-Bombs”.)
Chais Meyer: is there a way to make it repeat?
Chais Meyer: is there someone else that might know?
Shawn: Unfortunately, we do not have this feature right now, but I can forward your input to the appropriate department. Thank you for your suggestion. (Oh my gosh, he told me straight out that this service doesn’t exists! That is what I wanted to know the whole time!)
Chais Meyer: Goodbye and feel free to forward it. I hate chat support! (I was UBER frustrated!)
Chais Meyer: it is so frustrating!
Shawn: Thank you for contacting Product Support. Feel free to contact us again if you have any further questions or issues. (You know I will, You guys answer all of my questions the first time I ask! I’ll probably come back tomorrow to waste another 30 minutes on what should have been a 5 minute phone call.)
Shawn: Take care, bye.
Shawn has disconnected.

Shawn was disconnected from my support chat, and so was my loyalty to this company. “OKAY CHAIS, calm down!” I thought to myself, “just fill out the satisfaction survey at the top and I’m sure you’ll get a proper response back!”

I did fill out the satisfaction survey and here is what I wrote:

This was the worst chat experience ever! I am very frustrated and I would like to talk to a person that can answer my questions without following a script. I want someone that actually knows your product and wants to help customers. I was very interested in your product, in fact I loved it! I am willing to work through issues with a company that wants to succeed and they want their customers to be their inspiration in how their product runs. You are not that right now! If there is a human on board with Mvelopes, I would like more than just an email that says, “I’m sorry your experience wasn’t what you expected, we will work our hardest to improve it for next time”. Call Me if you value support at all: 402-419-1202 Chais Meyer is my name & that is my cell phone. Thank you!

So…Let me ask you all a question, Do you think I received a Phone call? Or…Do You think that I received that much expected email? Okay, I won’t make you guess, I received the email and here it is:

Discussion Thread
—————————————————————
Response (Roger) - 03/27/2009 08:41 PM
Dear Chais Meyer,

I apologize for the unsatisfactory service you have experienced on Live Chat. We would like to offer you a call back from one of our senior support agents if you need further assistance with the issues described below. We can contact you within a business day. Please reply to this e-mail give us a primary and secondary contact number and a time/date when we can contact you between the hours of 8.30 am -4.30 PM Monday - Friday, Mountain time.

We look forward to hearing from you and helping you become an Mvelopes success story.

Please let us know if you have any further questions or concerns. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
Product Support