Michelle Prefers

Even though this is not a business tool, it’s a tool for life (a parenting tool), & it’s even taught me a few ways I can deal with team members in my company.

I decided to place this here because most of us are parents, or mentors, or grandparents, foster parents, big brothers, or aunts, uncles, older siblings, etc.

If you aren’t, you must know someone who is a parent & needs help.

In this day & age, most parents are very busy either running a business, or working to build their career.

Free time is barely an option, & even those of us who work from home so we have more time with our family find parenting to be very exhausting.

Long gone are the days when most kids were “well behaved”, now we seem to have been dealt a bunch of kids who are defiant, disrespectful, “know it alls”, & even abusive either emotionally, verbally or physically.

In the last year since my son turned 16 (soon to be 17), I started to encounter major problems with him from hacking into my business computer, to refusing to get a job, to hanging out with kids who made him more wild, him going out till all hours of the night. Then he started stealing from me, making fun of me with his friends & even to my face, the constant lies, & manipulation & the list goes on.

The nightmare was getting worse & worse, I was at my wits end. My business was put on the back burner while I had to deal with this kid who turned into my worst nightmare.

I didn’t even know what parental abuse was until last year.

I went to every social help agency I could find, & came across social workers who didn’t help & some almost blamed me for my son’s dysfunctional behavior, or they wanted to help split up the family without trying to teach us how to solve the problem.

I then sought out a therapist (psychologist) who didn’t communicate well or made too many mistakes & wasn’t quick enough to help.

FINALLY I found the answer to my problem.

In today’s society even though we are told we should care for our kids, in high school & college we STILL aren’t taught how to parent properly. We are told (or given the hidden message) that we as parents have to suffer because they are “just kids & it’s normal”.

Well I’m telling you now it’s NOT NORMAL, & if you are a parent who’s being abused by your kid(s), you need to take action today.

I only wish I had come across this parenting course years ago, but I am not going to whine about what I didn’t do, I’m only looking forward from here on in.

Please look it over. They even have a payment plan & a 30 day money back guarantee.

I swear if you care about yourself & your kids, this will change your entire perception on how to raise them & how you think about your situation.

Let us know what you think.

While there are never any guarantees in life, I love this program to bits & highly recommend it & I’m not even done the complete program, I’m only on lesson 4.

Their parent support line has also helped me to brainstorm & also vent when I needed it most.

I hope it helps you & your family.

Michelle

So if you are running a business online, or even offline, most of us have to find a way to have mail sent to us discretely.

If we work from home, we don’t want the entire world to know our home address, and getting a traditional Post office box doesn’t work in most cases, trust me, I know.

For over 3 years I used a UPS (used to be Mail Boxes Etc.) post office box out of Buffalo New York because I needed to have a US address (I live in Canada) in order to get a US merchant account.

I didn’t talk to the people there often, but some of the time when I did, I wasn’t always thrilled, as I found them to be cold in personality.

I moved around a couple of times & they didn’t seem to have a computer system, so sometimes they got my old address mixed up with the new one when it came time to send me my mail.

They didn’t like the fact that I didn’t want my mail sent to me monthly. They clearly wanted to make more money off of me, & being a business person I understand that, but the fact that they mentioned this occasionally as if they were “doing me a favor” by sending me my mail every 3 or 6 months didn’t sit well with me. I shouldn’t have to be forced into having my mail (only a couple bank statements) sent to me every month.

At first they only charged me a $5 fee to send me the mail, but then I started to notice that they were raising up the prices to $6, & I didn’t like that. To be clear, this was for 4-6 sheets of paper most of the time.

Also another problem was that they didn’t send out their mail until Friday, so if you needed it right away, well I assume they would charge another fee to expedite their process.

One time they charged me $16 just to forward a small package to my assistant who lives in Ohio.

They refused to send me the small package directly (they were bank checks), so I had to have it mailed twice.

When my assistant sent it to me, it only cost him $7 (remember, that’s to Canada), & they charged me $16 to send it within the States, so yes, I felt I was ripped off.

I should have changed addresses & P.O. Boxes a long time ago, but I was told that the bank that holds my merchant account wouldn’t be happy, so I didn’t want to risk it. Finally I made the choice to change from UPS to an online mailing system.

It was a bit of a struggle only because my address changed to a different State, so Amex wanted to redo my application, but after that was done, I was amazed at how easy it was to use this new post office mail forwarding system.

Not only did I no longer have to pay to have statements sent to me, any statements that I would have needed immediately, like chargeback notices, was no longer an issue.

When you get a chargeback, you have to respond immediately, & when I used the traditional UPS post office box, I always went over the bank’s deadline because I had no idea I had even received a chargeback. This was always very stressful for me.

With this high tech post office box, I receive an e-mail notice from them that I have mail.

I then decide if I want to scan the mail, or have it forwarded/mailed to me (I have yet to have ANYTHING forwarded to me).

Once they have scanned it, I open up the PDF, & either forward it to my bookkeeper, or save it on my hard drive which then Carbonite backs up & I’m DONE!  It’s really THAT easy.

I do have to tell them to shred them afterwards of course.

And if I ever wanted to get a package sent to me, I know the prices would be a lot cheaper then what UPS tried to charge me & there would be no attitude.

In fact, their customer service is very good. I’ve talked to them a few times already.

So, if you live outside the US & you want to get a US merchant account (I can help you get one) & you have to come up with a US address, I recommend you use this service.

Even if you live in the States & you don’t want to divulge your home address because you work from home online, I recommend you use this service.

I did have my assistant compare this mail forwarding company & a couple of others, & this one ended up being the best value for the buck.

When he did all this comparing I also came to realize that I was spending a lot more with UPS per month then with this company. Add to that not having to wait for my mail & not having to ever have it forwarded to me because everything is done with the computer (Internet) well, I’m definitely a happy business owner.

Let me know how it goes for you.

Michelle