Monthly Archives: June 2007

Reaping the Rewards of our Press Release

Just over a month ago, Corie Stewart and I put out a joint press release about virtual assistants in the midstate-riding on the coattails of the Today Show segment on virtual assistants in May.

Well, we both got interviewed by a reporter! And hopefully the article will run in the Carlisle Sentinel next week. Stay tuned!

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“So, you’re a book shepherd?” Me: “What’s that?”

On Saturday afternoon, after flying home from Savannah, my family and I went to Kyle’s end-of-year Little League baseball party. I was definitely in parent/family mode, and wasn’t even thinking about work, but got into a very interesting conversation with another parent.

After being introduced to another mom, she asked me if I was the one who had the “Hidden Helper” business. (Not too many Lauren Hiddens in the world, I guess). I confirmed I was and she said she had my website bookmarked after my services were recommended to her by a mutual acquaintance. My first thought was, “Wow, I’m famous!”

Long story short, she has written a book and was looking for extensive promotion, for which I gave her a referral to a colleague who would be a better fit. But she has other books and projects she’ll be working on and said she will be in touch. She also mentioned she has a book shepherd she hired. When I told her what my business offered, she said, “oh, so you’re a book shepherd, too?” I told her I never heard of that term, but it sounded pretty close. So I just looked it up, and it looks like it’s a branded/service marked term of Ellen Reid. It’s a pretty clever concept and similar to what I do. The Hidden Helpers offer the services you need to create a great-looking, professional book at a reasonable cost.

In fact, we are currently expanding our service offerings to include more aspects of book writing, editing, design and preparation for publishing. Look for more info coming soon!

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It’s Back to Reality

On Saturday, the boys and I returned from vacation at my parents’ house on the intercoastal waterway in Savannah. The temperatures were pretty moderate, which was great. The boys attended a day camp in my parents community where they did crafts, games, swam and learned some basics of tennis and golf. And I got the longest stretch of time to myself without working or the kids in years! It was nice to recharge.

Delta, Delta, Delta…
We flew out from Harrisburg on Saturday June 9th. At least we were supposed to. While waiting to board, the gate agents were trying to recruit people to get bumped to a flight THE NEXT DAY because they were overbooked by 5 seats. Apparently they didn’t get enough takers and called me up to the gate and told me we were being involuntarily bumped. I was less than pleased. Very long story short, we were compensated with three $400 vouchers for future flights (more than we paid for the tickets, maybe that’s why we got bumped!) and were put in a cab to a trip to Baltimore to catch a flight from BWI. We didn’t get on our flight from there until 10:00, which is approx. the time we were originally to arrive in Savannah. So in each airport, we had approx. a 2-hour wait until the flight left. It’s bad enough when you’re on your own, but to also have to entertain two kids was sure a challenge. Luckily we had a superball, a pool light foam football and two little stuffed animals in their carry-ons so we made the best of it. And we got to sit in first class from Atlanta to Savannah so that wasn’t too bad either. Unfortunately, we did not get consecutive seats on either leg of the flight. But we finally reached our destination approx. 10 hours after we started out that morning.

The flight back was so different. We didn’t get bumped. And we had the nicest flight attendant on the Atlanta to Harrisburg leg…Janice. Drew, my 5-year-old was tired and grumpy that he had to sit across the aisle from me and not next to me (the plane was a 2 seat on one side and two on the other configuration). So he started crying and the flight attendant talked to him, calmed him down and gave him and my other son cookies and treated them like royalty for the flight. What a different feeling than the trip to Savannah. Since every leg of the flight on the way down was overbooked (Harrisburg, Baltimore, and Atlanta) I decided that you could fly on Delta in perpetuity for the price of one flight if you kept giving up your seat, lol.

One day my parents and I went to lunch at the Starfish Cafe. Check out the highlighted link. The food was great and so is the mission of that restaurant.

Also did a little shopping, went out on my dad’s friend’s powerboat (no better way to see River Street in Savannah) and went to Tybee Island Beach. The water in the ocean and in the pools in Savannah feels heated. Mid-Atlantic water is much colder!

So now it’s back to work and summer hours are in effect: Tuesday-Thursday from 8-4. Enjoy the summer!

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Leaving on a jet plane….

The Hidden Helpers will be closed the week of June 11, 2007. Enjoy your summer!

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What I’m Learning from my Mentor

I’ve been fortunate to have many mentors (formal and informal) in the last several years that have helped me get where I am today. I still have a long way to go. Through CPAFE (Central Pennsylvania Association for Female Executives), I have been matched with a mentor, “Marcia”, who has already challenged me to make some positive challenges.

Confession #1: I’m an email addict
I have to admit, I obsessively check email. I really don’t know why. It’s like it is some kind of Pavlovian response. The problem is, it distracts me from the task I’m working on when I stop to read and respond to my emails. So I need to stop checking email every 10 minutes or so and go to 2-hour intervals. I whined that I pride myself on getting back to my clients immediately, but Marcia gently reminded me that it’s all about setting expectations. 2 hours is a reasonable response time, and if it’s that urgent, my clients need to learn to pick up the phone and call me.

Confession #2: I don’t have a good grip on scheduling myself
I tend to work on the stuff I think is most important at the time. However, sometimes I waste time trying to decide what to work on first. So I need to set aside certain times of the day and days of the week for different tasks, and schedule in what I will be working on each day.

There are more, but let’s stop there for the day. I’ll let you know how well I’ve succeeded in these two areas in a few weeks.

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