How I know I'm doing the right thing

Any new entrepreneur goes through frequent highs and lows. Doubts are part of the process. But today is one of the NO-DOUBT days.

At the lunch meeting on that two-networking-event-day a couple of weeks ago, I met Eden, an actress, acting coach and workshop leader. She's a creative person, very intelligent, and very talented, but she does not have a great deal of experience with computers. She was not feeling particularly confident about using her computer to manage the administration of her business, so she asked me to help her migrate her business from a paper-based system to electronic files.

We spent a couple of hours together this morning creating a customized system so Eden can stay in touch with her students, track their workshop activities and homework, and manage her books.

In the first hour, we built her contact database - very simply, in Excel, so it would be useful on its own, or as a data repository to be used in concert with Word for merged letters, or in concert with Outlook for email correspondence.

In the second hour, we built the accounting workbook, again in Excel. In the first worksheet, we created a list of standard accounts as suggested by SimplyAccounting for a business like Eden's (exported directly, and then customized for Eden). Then we created one Worksheet to track her expenses and another to track her revenues. We labeled each of the worksheets and formatted the cells, and then explored the various functions like hiding columns, freezing panes, summing, sorting, and filtering.

By the time I left, Eden had not only a workable accounting system and contacts database, but also a very good understanding of a handful of Excel's best features and exactly how they benefited her in managing her business.

Eden thanked me, wrote me a cheque, and sent me on my way. But as I closed the door and turned to walk down the hall, I could hear her squealing with delight. (I'm pretty sure she said "YIPPEE!" Too cute! But I was saying exactly the same thing - in my head!)

The thanks was nice and the cheque was really nice, but that squeal will stay with me forever!