Small Business
Miss Potters Place – Backyard Garden Dream Space!
MGS Designz & More is dedicated to growing your business and getting you noticed! We specialize in custom designed Hybrid Websites that really take your online presence to the next level.
MGS Designz is all about showing off our clients not only because we love what we do to make them look and sound good but because we really admire everything they offer! Today we want to introduce you to one of our favorite, brand new clients –Adrienne Diaz-Potter from Miss Potters Place. If you’re looking for a place to learn all about edible gardening, micro farming or if you want fresh, all natural eggs, fruits, veggies, herbs and more then you need to visit Miss Potters Place in Fort Myers. This is one of my favorite places to stop in and explore, enjoy and jump into healthy!
Are you ready for fun, fabulous and healthy?
Welcome to Miss Potters Place! We are an AgriTourism Destination that is Beautiful, Educational, Fun and delicious! Miss Potter is a certified Square Foot Gardener and a Master Gardener who has dedicated several years to transforming her backyard into a wonderful oasis of gardening, farming, plant nursery and more!
Have you stopped by lately? Things are really growing and blooming at Miss Potters Place!
A Showcase of Edible Gardening
Edible Flowers
Edible Hedges
Container Planting
Fruit, Nut, Spice Trees
Veggies & Herbs
Butterfly Gardens too!
Backyard Urban Micro Farm
Rabbits
Free Range Chickens
Bees / Bee Hives
Earthworms
Bird Houses / Feeders
Bat Houses
Butterfly Plants
Come Grow With Us!
Garden Tours
Garden School
Classes / Workshops
Personal Consultations
Plant Nursery
Garden Parties
Gift Shop And more!
Come Visit Miss Potters Place! We’d love to have you join us!
Miss Potter’s Place purposes to inspire, encourage and educate others about edible gardening.
You may be a plant lover looking for new ideas and/or searching for fellow enthusiasts, or you may be the opposite, you may be a beginner, transplanted or frustrated gardener. Where ever you are, Miss Potter would be honored to participate with you on your edible gardening journey!
Come Visit Soon! Come be inspired! Come see what can be done in a backyard space!
We’re at 3747 Liberty Square, Fort Myers, FL 33908 (239) 464-5754
Mondays & Thursdays 9 am – 6 pm ● Sundays 10 am – 4 pm ● All other days by appointment only
MGS Designz & More is dedicated to growing your business and getting you noticed. We proudly serve happy clients nationwide, however we are based out of Cape Coral, FL. We have been in #SWFL for over ten years now providing awesome services such as marketing consulting, web design, graphic design, social media marketing, blogging, email marketing, SEO, creative writing, translation services and more!
Monica Garcia Saenz
MGS Designz & More…
(954) 326-5366
(239) 282-2869
mgsdesignz@gmail.com
mgsdesignz.com
Connect with me!
Six Figures – Lee Knapp’s New Book!
For Immediate Release:
Knapp ConsultantsContact: Lee Knapp
5260 Harborage Drive
Fort Myers, FL 33908
(239) 481-8557
Lee@LeeKnapp.com
www.LeeKnapp.com
LOCAL AUTHOR, SPEAKER, SALES TRAINER & BUSINESS CONSULTANT PUBLISHES YET ANOTHER GREAT BUSINESS BOOK – SIX FIGURES
Local Business Consultant & Author Lee Knapp, in collaboration with five of her closest friends, has recently published a new book Six Figures, Mixing Friendship & Business Like a Good Martini.
Fort Myers, FL – (July 24, 2012) Local Fort Myers, Business Consultant, Author, Motivational Speaker, and Sales Trainer – Lee Knapp has once again reached her goal of publishing yet another Book on Business! This time she teamed up with five of her closest friends and business associates to create an inspiring, funny and moving collection of true stories that every woman, regardless of her career choice, should read! The book is now available for sale on Amazon and at local book signings in town. (dates and locations are yet to be determined) The women had an amazing launch of their new book at the 12th Annual eWomen Network International Conference & Business Expo in Dallas July 12 – 15th, 2012 with over 2,000 women business entrepreneurs sharing information and building relationships.
Six Figures is a true story about six professional business women who supported each other and collaborated to make important changes possible for one another, both personally and professionally. It is a story with a compelling message that friendship really matters to women…. and it matters a lot. Through their interactions, the six women in this book weathered difficult transitions, gathered wisdom, and developed enduring relationships that, when shared, made each woman stronger than she could ever have been on her own.
The women are planning a series of retreats for women based on the fundamentals shared in the stories of this book. The focus of the teachings will be on self empowerment, support and inspiration for individuals and as a group. These workshops will have structured exercises that will enable participants to see the best in themselves and in others as well as develop the necessary skills to communicate, inspire and empower each other to overcome their greatest challenges and find success in life. The book has its own website and blog where the ladies have shared photos, recipes, positive quotes, bios on the authors and more stories to come in the upcoming blogs.www.SixFiguresBook.com they also have a facebook fanpage that fans are encouraged to Like for updates, news and new photos. www.facebook.com/sixfiguresbook
Book Description
Six Figures is one of those rare books that grabs a hold of you from deep within and doesn’t let you go until the last page. Even then, you’re left with the incredible craving for more… more real life stories of love, friendship, laughter, learning, tears and inspiration. Meet an amazing group of professional women – “Bad Girls” – Barbara, Lauri, Lee, Susan, Gina and Nicki – who were on a quest for a successful career, a better life and deeper relationships, all from different states, backgrounds and age groups who come together in an “accidental” meeting at a business conference in Minnesota. Take a trip with them down memory lane as they each take turns retelling their version of the blossoming of a wonderful friendship that has weathered the years of life’s greatest up’s, downs and in-betweens. Prepare to find yourself laughing out loud and reaching for the Kleenex box while rethinking your own life and searching to reconnect with your long-lost girlfriends! This is truly an inspiring real story about six women on a journey to find success, themselves and each other in the process! Definitely a MUST READ!
Book Purpose
We are SIX PROFESSIONAL BUSINESS WOMEN who are on a mission to inspire, empower and unite women of all walks of life. Our goal is to help eliminate limiting beliefs that hold women back from reaching their goals. Our dream is to inspire women to take positive action and reach their full potential while giving themselves permission to reach out to others for help and support. We believe that women can accomplish so much more if they have the love, support and encouragement of their girlfriends and allow themselves to release any beliefs that impede success. We all have greatness within us; we just need someone to help us see how truly great we all are! – Barbara, Lauri, Lee, Susan, Gina and Nicki
Book Review
“Six Figures left me wishing I was number seven in their amazing group of girlfriends on a quest for a successful career, a better life and deeper relationships. I found myself picking up the phone to dial old friends and reconnecting with my girls and finding my own support and power team. These women inspired me to take my career to the next level, be true to myself, reach out to my friends, have more fun and experience life in greater fashion!”
– Monica Garcia Saenz – Coauthor, Chicken Soup for the Latino Soul
About Lee Knapp
Lee Knapp is a successful national Motivational Speaker, Author, Sales Trainer and Business Consultant living in the Southwest Florida area. Lee previously co-authored Discover Your Inner Strength with Stephen Covey, Ken Blanchard, and Brian Tracy and published ebook When the Going Gets Tough, Ride it Out! and mini-ebook Attitude is Everything, all available for download or purchase via her website. For more than 24 years, Lee Knapp has been sharing her motivational messages designed to reinforce strengths, redesign game plans and help individuals live their life to the fullest. Her secret to success is her vast experience, her incredible passion, her contagiously positive energy and her unique personal touch that reaches employees and customers alike. If you would like to have Lee speak at one of your upcoming events please feel free to contact her by calling 239-481-8557 emailing her at Lee@LeeKnapp.com or visiting her website at www.LeeKnapp.com.
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New Year requires a New Plan!
MGS Designz is all about sharing the positive and inspiring you to become GREAT at what you do! Today we’re going to share another great blog post from Lee Knapp! We help Lee manager her blog, newsletter and social media every month and we’d love to help you! Please contact us for more information!
Are you really ready for the New Year?As 2012 arrives quickly we can close our eyes and almost here it whispers to us “One, Two, Three… ready or not, here I come!” Just like in the days of our childhood hide and seek play, before we even had a chance to figure out what our next move was going to be, the countdown was over and it was time! Now is the perfect moment to stop and reflect on our accomplishments of the last year and consider where we want to go in the coming year. You have the power to make those decisions. It’s up to you to use it !
OK, let’s get started. First, eliminate all distractions, sounds , whatever. Sit quietly and ask yourself this question : “What do I want to accomplish in 2012?” Having a clear definition of your goal is the first step in reaching it. If you don’t know where you are headed than you don’t know what direction to take. Running a business can be frustrating, stressful, and confusing, at times. Having goals that provide direction and motivation help us stay creative and enjoy what we are doing.
You know, they say “Time flies when you’re having fun” and I don’t know about you but I think it flies whether you’re having fun or not! It’s happening whether we are prepared or not and we certainly aren’t getting any younger!
Success isn’t something we stumble upon. It isn’t something that arrives at our doorstep by chance or accident. We don’t wake up one day and find that we’re successful. We reach success after a period of time in which we have defined, planned, programmed, worked, walked, sweat, struggled, analyzed, reworked, and believed we could actually reach it. It’s not easy but it isn’t impossible either. It takes clarity, determination and persistence but it can be yours!
In real life you get to define the direction of your business and you should. Do you want to grow or downsize? Should you move to a new location or work from home? Do you want to make more money? Do you want to take on a partner or hire a new employee? Do you want to add a new service or reduce your product line? All of these questions you need to ask and answer yourself and then define what your plan is for 2012. You can’t expect to walk into 2012 without goals and a game plan on how you will achieve them.
Part of what I do as a Business Coach is to sit down with you, as a client, and walk you through this process. I can help you understand where you are, where you want to be and what it’s going to take to get there. My years of experience give me the opportunity to see what you can’t see and then help you plan how to get there. We can define what you would like, what you absolutely have to have and that middle ground that is a compromise between the two. We can create a realistic, attainable and sound plan for you to start your New Year knowing where you are going and how you’re going to achieve your success.
Sometimes people forget that they have to spend money in order to make money. Sometimes they forget that it’s much better to hire someone who can help them figure it out from a different perspective. It’s easy to be so close to our business that we don’t see opportunities right under our nose. Gaining another opinion and brainstorming with other professionals just makes good sense. I do the same thing for my business. I have learned that it can cost me more money to try to figure things out by myself instead of bringing in another professional to help share ideas and their expertise.
Knapp Consultants has been offering Business Consulting and EMPLOYEE DEVELOPMENT TRAINING for over 23 years! You can contact me, Lee Knapp to hear how I can help you grow your business and further develop the skills of your employees. . (239) 481-8557 or visit www.LeeKnapp.com for more details!
Do I really need a Bookkeeper?
MGS Designz is all about sharing the good stuff! Lately we’ve been showcasing our clients blogs on our blog – just so you can see who are clients are and also see samples of our work. Today we’re going to share a great blog post from Judith McMahon from Bean Counters of FL! We have been working with Judith for years and have helped her with her logo, business card and website. Please read on and feel free to contact us for more information!
Bookkeeping Tips by Bean Counters of Florida
# 1 Keep an audit trail
An audit trail is nothing more than a record of all your invoices and checks in numeric order. The thing to remember is never skip numbers. Record voided check and invoice numbers in numeric order with all other checks and invoices, only denote each one that is “voided.” This assures there will be no gaps in your numerical sequence and leaves a proper audit trail.
# 2 Due Date Reminders
It’s a good idea to follow a payroll tax due date reminder. Whether you have a payroll service preparing your payroll tax returns or you’re preparing them yourself, you should follow a check-off list of all the required payroll tax reports. A good due date reminder would be customized to your business’ specific payroll liabilities 
and include the follow information:
- Due date
- Type of tax
- Report number
- Government agency
- Time period covered
- Submit money, a report or both
# 3 Remember to Be Consistent
Consistency is essential to successful business bookkeeping. If you use a paper bookkeeping system, always be sure to head your columns the same way each month throughout the year. This small matter of consistency will save you and your accountant time and aggravation.
# 4 Keep Good Records
Many business owners don’t keep good records. Some don’t understand bookkeeping; others understand it, but may be afraid of what the numbers might tell them. Think of it this way–bookkeeping is the glue that keeps your business together. If your records aren’t in good shape, the business could fall apart. A healthy business is monitored through its records on a regular basis so you can find problems and correct them before it’s too late.
# 5 Deposit Ticket Books
How do you handle your bank deposits? One easy way is to record your daily deposit in a deposit ticket book. Generally, these books come with a white (original) copy and yellow (duplicate) copy in books of 50. For a small business, an order of 200 duplicate deposit tickets could last 2 years unless you make deposits every day. As you write each deposit ticket, it is a good idea to remove the white
copy to give to the bank and leave the duplicate (yellow) in the book. That way nothing gets lost.
Why would I have to hire a bookkeeping service? I can just go out and buy QuickBooks and do it myself.
Yes, you can, and then again you can’t. Why do we say this? Clients come to us after they’ve attempted to do their own books with QuickBooks. They usually fall into two categories: those that have made a complete mess of things and those who find they don’t have the time to get to it what with running their businesses, managing their employees, handling sales and marketing, family and so on. Eventually they find themselves so far behind that they know they’ll never catch up.
Hiring a professional bookkeeping service gives you a professional individual who doesn’t need to be trained, doesn’t want health insurance, workers compensation or vacation pay. Bookkeepers do the work of accountants for an affordable price. Can you go to your CPA? Sure you can. But think about this. They charge their normal fee, pay their bookkeeper a wage or a fee and pocket the difference. Wouldn’t you rather have that money in your pocket?
We bring to your business over 35 years of accounting and bookkeeping experience. We’ve worked with a number of different companies and know what you need and what needs to be done to get your books in order and keep them that way. So if you’re feeling overwhelmed and stressed out about your bookkeeping, then give us a call. We will be glad to help. Bean Counters of Florida is a full service bookkeeping company that serves small and start up businesses. What do we mean by full service? Well, everything from reconciling your accounts all the way to paying your bills and doing your payroll. We do it all!!
Judith McMahon 239-313-6322 Office 239-288-2546 Fax Judith@beancountersfl.com www.BeanCountersFL.com
Battery Fundamentals from Battery Giant SWFL
MGS Designz is all about sharing the good business advice and inspiring you to become GREAT at what you do! Today we’re going to share another great blog post from Brittany King with Battery Giant of SWFL! We help Brittany put together her blog and newsletter every month and we very much enjoy working with her. Please read on and feel free to contact us for more information!
Wow – where has the time gone! We have been pretty busy serving our customers here at Battery Giant in Cape Coral, and the holidays are sneaking up on us. Thanksgiving is just around the corner, which will kick off the holiday season. And since we’re on the subject of giving thanks, we would like to take this opportunity to THANK YOU for your patronage and loyalty. Thanks for taking the time to connect with us, read our blog and for making Battery Giant of SWFL you favorite place to go for batteries!
In anticipation of the holidays, we’re going to be getting some cool battery related products in which will make fantastic gifts for the folks on your list. I’ll provide a couple of examples before I go into more battery fundamentals.
For example, for the holidays, we have stocked up on some really sweet LED flashlights that are incredibly powerful and bright. And for those of you who have four-legged friends, we’re also getting some awesome LED collars so you can see – and your friend can be seen – at night. Come on in and check them out – we think you’ll love them. We have lots of awesome stocking stuffers that your family, friends and employees will absolutely love!
Enough of the commercials – lets get back to battery fundamentals. Last week, I spent some time to explain three of the basic types of batteries that customers need. In today’s blog, I’ll cover off four others, which make up the balance of the market for replacement batteries.
As before, I’m going to take advantage of materials provided by our Battery Giant headquarters operation to provide the content I’ll use.
Nickel – metal – hydride (NiMH): these types of batteries have a higher energy density compared to Nickel Cadmium. However, they have a reduced cycle life compared to NiCd. The other good news is there is relatively little toxic metal in NiMH batteries, but please bring them to us for responsible recycling anyhow. Popular applications for NiMH include cordless phones, rechargeable batteries, and older generations of cellular phones.
Alkaline: Alkaline batteries are one of the most popular consumer batteries. They are available in a number of different sizes – the most popular are AA, AAA, C and D. They have high energy density, long shelf life, superior leakage resistance, and lower internal resistance that allow it to operate at higher discharge rates over a wide range of temperatures. Popular applications include radios, watches, toys and numerous other household applications.
Lithium Phosphate:Lithium Phosphate batteries have high energy density by weight and volume, safety (high resistance to thermal runaway), and high current or peak power rating. Typical applications include power tools, solar lighting, and a broad range of medical devices such as oxygen concentrators, defibrillators and EMS equipment.- Lithium Polymer: Lithium Polymer batteries provide higher volumetric energy density. Beyond this benefit, the primary advantage for manufacturers of consumer devices such as iPods and cell phones is that Lithium Polymer provides great flexibility in cell size, shape and weight. Lithium Polymer also provides superior stability in over-voltage and high temperature conditions.
Finally, I wanted to let you know we’re preparing our first email newsletter, so for those of you who have given us your email addresses, expect to see our newsletter in your inbox in the near future. Don’t delete it – it will have a valuable coupon for you to use on your next visit to us! If you would like to subscribe now – click here!
Solutions for Your Hiring Problems!
MGS Designz is all about sharing the good business advice and inspiring you to become GREAT at what you do! Today we’re going to share another great blog post from Maryanne Preston and Hiring Solutions! We help Maryanne put together her blog and newsletter every few months and we’d love to help you! Please contact us for more information!
Persistence – How to Hire Great People
It’s no secret that hiring is one of the biggest challenges of managing and growing a productive team. So why do we chronically underestimate the time and energy that we need to dedicate to this crucial task? Business owners frequently minimize the importance of hiring. It’s a “tertiary task” superficially unrelated to client work, and often triggered under duress: a huge new client project to ramp up for, the opening of a new office, or the exodus of a few great employees. For this reason, hiring often takes on a stressful tone and is executed hastily. Yet no decision can have a bigger impact on the direction of your work and the long-term success of your business.
Hiring exceptional people allows a leader to set strategic direction and then hand over incremental decisions to smart, capable team members. Letting people in the organization use their judgment turns out to be faster and cheaper – but only if you hire the right people and reward them for having the right attitude.
The trick is uncovering those talented and trustworthy people – and knowing what they look like when you find them. Here are a handful of tips:
1. You cannot clone yourself. One of the first obstacles in expanding your team is re-wiring your brain. Subconsciously or not, you may be fixated on looking for someone with the skills, mannerisms, single-minded passion, and other useful qualities that mimic your own. Instead, look for a cocktail of complementary skills to balance your weaknesses. Seek a foundation of rudiments and a likeable and hard-working personality. There is no one who loves your work more than you.
2. Persistence is golden. There’s a rule of thumb called The Rule of 100. Assume you’ll need to make contact with 100 people in order to find 10 prospects to narrow to a pool of 3 great matches. Sometimes this is an overestimation, but the point is that finding the right person is usually a matter of persistence. Don’t stop looking if you’re having trouble finding the right fit, just keep looking.
3. The best resource is your personal network. Hands down the best source for locating a person that fits you and your company is your circle of contacts. It’s your job to communicate effectively to your network by being clear about what you’re looking for and the context of the hire. It helps to be specific when approaching your network to give them information that’s easy to act on.
4. But… don’t forget to look beyond your network. It is a common strategy (and a common mistake) to stick to your personal network to find quality people. Go beyond your circle of contacts. Make a list of people and companies you respect or admire and reach out to them for assistance. Always ask who you should speak to next to continue to expand your network concentrically outward.
5. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior… but it’s not always obvious. Often a person’s interests are found in the seams of their resume or professional trajectory. Find out about hobbies, art projects or groups they started outside of work. This type of initiative will provide insight into how well a person works independently and if they’re prone to turning ideas action.
6. Use “critical incident interviewing.” This is an interview model that queries specific past events as a basis for discerning a person’s capabilities. It’s all about cascading questions. Start by asking about an incident, then peeling back the layers to evaluate the person’s thought process, judgment, and how he or she deals with a situation.
For example:
- “Tell me about a time you disagreed with your supervisor on a creative issue.”
- “Walk me through the problem.”“What did you do about it?”
- “What led to that decision?”
- “Why do you think that was effective?”
- “What was the outcome?”
7. Assign homework. After a series of interviews, it is common practice for companies to assign a phantom project or problem to solve. Some even hand off a client assignment and compensate potential employees for their work. There’s no better way to predict performance than by having the opportunity to evaluate the work directly and get a feel for a prospect’s style and habits.
8. Do great work and make great stuff… so the best people find you. It’s no surprise that the best companies always have the easiest time hiring. That’s because people are clamoring to work for them. Strive to do mind-bendingly great work and the hiring will take care of itself!
Do you know what your Customer needs?
MGS Designz is all about sharing the positive and inspiring you to become GREAT at what you do! Today we’re going to share another great blog post from Lee Knapp! We help Lee put togehter her blog and newsletter every month and we’d love to help you! Please contact us for more information!
YOU CAN’T PLEASE YOUR CUSTOMERS UNLESS YOU KNOW THEM!
Customer Service is a big part of every business and unfortunately it’s one that often gets forgotten. Every year business owners spend hundreds and thousands of dollars in advertising, marketing, getting the best packaging for their product, securing the perfec t location, etc… – it’s all a part of doing business, right? So why doesn’t it always work? Well often times they are missing a really big element – Customer Service! In this new blog series we’re going to review several tips, tricks and ideas on how you can become a successful business person by improving your customer service skills! If you missed it, click here to read Part 1.
Part 2 of “THE FOUR CRITICAL STEPS TO CUSTOMER LOYALTY”
2. KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER!
If we take a look at the big business successes of the past it’s not that difficult to see that the leader or person in charge of that company or business had a pretty good idea of what the end-user wanted and was then able to fill the need in a manner that made the client happy. Take Steve Jobs for example – he was able to take Apple from a dream idea to a household name with products that everyone doesn’t just want but HAS to have and right now… how? He had a knack for knowing what people wanted. Even when everyone else around him said it was crazy, impossible or a waste of time, he not only made it happen but he created a success out of it.
Now I know we all can’t be Steve Jobs and we certainly don’t have crystal ball or magic powers to see what our potential customers want but there are plenty of fundamental and basic tips to great customer service. There is a lot that you can do as a provider of a product or service to research and learn more about your customers and what they need. Below are just a few tips to help you get started!
IDENTIFY THE STUDENTS/CUSTOMERS NEEDS
- Know their timing needs.
- Try to anticipate their needs in advance.
- Be able to ‘READ” their attitude.
- Practice skillful listening with care.
- Create two-way dialog.
Knapp Consultants has been offering Customer Service Training for over 23 years! Please contact Lee Knapp to find out how she can help you and your employees increase your sales and improve your customer satisfaction. (239) 481-8557 or visit www.LeeKnapp.com for more details!
It’s all in the Attitude!
MGS Designz is all about bringing you the GOOD STUFF! Every time we have the opportunity to showcase an article on our blog you know it’s going to have good, positive and valuable content. The below is from a good friend and client who has dedicated her life to inspiring others to find success and be the very best they can be.
Today we’re happy to introduce you to Lee Knapp from Knapp Consultants, please read on! MGS Designz proudly works with Lee on all her blogs and email marketing campaigns. Please let us know if we can ever be of service to you!
Knapp Consultants would like to take this opportunity to Thank You for taking the time out of your busy day to share a few moments with us.
Here at Knapp Consultants, we understand that the level of success we have in our business and in our lives can be directly measured by the level of gratitude we have in our daily life. On this note we’d like to share a few thoughts on gratitude with you today and in the days to come.
ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE
Think about this … what if you took just ten minutes each morning to focus on your “attitude of gratitude?” What do you have to be grateful for?
Gratitude gives you purpose. When you have purpose, you’ll find success.
Gratitude is best reflected in how you act toward and respond to others.
Create your culture of being grateful. How can you be more gracious with you’re your family and your customers?
Are you anticipating the needs of people you care about?
It’s within the smallest details where we uncover the greatest opportunities.
Gratitude is a state of being.
You only live once – but if you work it right, once is enough
JOE E. LEWIS
For more information, please feel free to visit our website at http://www.leeknapp.com or call (239) 481-8557. Take advantage of our Sales Power Boot Camp – sign up today!
Do you have any Sales Training Questions? Click Here to ASK LEE!
