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Ah, hyperlinks. They let us do so much—but they also increase the size of your Word document. If you only have one or two links, it’s not a problem. But what if your Word doc is full of links you don’t need?

A typical trademark search report is over 20 pages long and contains hundreds of links to the USPTO’s Trademark Database. The problem is, these links expire very quickly, so by the time my client gets the search report, the links are useless and the file is huge. Even turning it into a PDF doesn’t always compress it enough to make it easy to mail.

I checked all the Edit and Format options in Word, but didn’t find a “remove all links” command. However, a Google search on the phrase “remove all hyperlinks from Word” took me to a page in the Microsoft Development Network Library with instructions on how to create a macro for removing hyperlinks.

I’m a complete beginner when it comes to macros, but this one is very simple to set up, and it worked like a charm. After taking 5 minutes to set it up in the Visual Basic Edtior, I clicked Tools | Macro | Macros, selected the “Remove Hyperlinks” macro, and clicked Run. Within a few seconds I’d taken 200K off my 800K search report.

If you have documents that are full of unnecessary hyperlinks, I urge you to try this.

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How do you ask clients for referrals? Here’s a terrific line one Bay Area businesswoman uses.

Alice Tsai of ReMax Accord has the following line printed on the backs of her business cards:

The Finest Compliment I can Receive is a Referral From Past Clients and Customers. Thank You For Your Trust.

Referrals are the kind of compliment most consultants want. This is a graceful way to ask for them. I might, personally, prefer to put this phrase not on my business cards (which I hand to strangers) but on thank you notes, invoices, or other materials which go to clients after I have been working with them long enough to know they are happy with my work.

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Since all businesses are in the business of marketing, it’s a popular subject for podcasters. But anyone thinking of writing a book should also tune into Publishing Basics Radio for the down and dirty on self-publishing, print on demand, and vanity presses. WBJB host Ron Pramschufer (and I thought “Goetsch” was tough in the pronunciation department!) interviews his competition and anyone else he thinks will help listeners “navigate the self publishing minefield.”

The podcast is a production of SelfPublishing.com and Books Just Books (hence the un-radio station is called WBJB). In addition to MP3, audios are available for download as QuickTime, Windows Media, or RealMedia files. Point your podcatcher at http://wbjbradio.com/wbjbradio.xml to subscribe.

I only learned yesterday that Conversations with Experts, a weekly teleseminar series hosted by Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff, is available as a podcast. Several past ‘casts have been about blogging; the current theme is publishing, inspired by the Blog to Book course. Of course, once Denise realizes that the feed is still on and the audio files they’re selling on the website are still appearing for free in the podcatcher, she’ll probably turn it off. Catch it while you can at http://dlwakeman.audioblog.com/rss/experts.xml.

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Podcasting (also known as audio blogging) is a fairly new but increasingly popular phenomenon. There are more podcasts out there than you can shake a stick at, and I’m still sampling them, but these three already stand out.

Diary of a Shamless Self-Promoter
Chicago-based tradeshow presenter Heidi Miller is a woman “who gets paid to talk.” You can tell, too: she speaks confidently, enthusiastically, and with good diction. Several podcasts I’ve listened to have a decent quality of information, but hesitant or lackluster presentation. Heidi’s style is as engaging as her “Zen marketing” substance. I’m not sure I like the new intro music, though, however slick the production.

The Marketing Minute
Not to be confused with Marcia Yudkin’s e-zine of the same name (and actually labeled “Marketing Edge” by my podcatcher, Albert Maruggi’s podcast appears several times a week. In addition to the one-minute clips, there are “Marketing Focus” interviews with marketers and technology experts. Maruggi has mastered the art of saying something useful in a short span of time.

The Marketer’s Podcast
Australian marketing experts Alan Stewart and Andrew Winter provide insights into the workings of the human brain and the different ways people make buying decisions, as well as suggestions on how to improve marketing. They’re entertaining, creative, and very responsive to feedback. (But guys, you really should put your names on your website! Leaving them off is a marketing no-no.)

Honorable mention goes to the Church of the Customer podcast, by customer evangelistas Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell. So far they only seem to be podcasting once a month.

Finally, a word on the subject of “podcatchers,” as podcast aggregators are called. You can always download individual podcasts manually from the website, but that gets time-consuming if you listen to more than a few shows. I’ve tried both iPodder and Odeo and prefer iPodder. Odeo has a nice web interface for managing subscriptions, but it stores all the MP3 files in one folder, and it gives them rather impenetrable URL-based names. Plus it gave me an error message every time I turned it off, and it needs to open iTunes to run. iPodder puts each podcast in its own folder and preserves the producer’s chosen file name. Both are free downloads; iPodder is open-source and Odeo is in beta.

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Want to know whether your web page focuses on your customer? Visit Future Now’s “We We Calculator“, type in the URL, and find out. It tracks the number of words which refer to you and your company against the number of words which focus on the customer and gives you a score. Hours of entertainment (if you have a large website) and instant insight into which copy you need to polish.

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There are lots of good reasons for not wanting to meet clients, especially new ones, in your home office. (This goes double if your office is your bedroom, as mine is.) There may also be good reasons not to meet at the client’s office. So where is the best place to meet a client?

I wanted a place that was (in order of preference):

1. Easy for someone not familiar with the neighborhood to find
2. Close to my office (within about a 10-minute drive)
3. Quiet enough to have a conversation without shouting
4. Had a comfortable, prosperous atmosphere
5. Provided wireless internet access and was otherwise laptop-friendly

Since I didn’t want to take the time to tour every cafe within a five-mile radius of my home, I asked for input from members of the Brain Exchange mailing list. This mailing list has about 800 subscribers, all of them very inventive women and many of them solo professionals, as I am. And, unlike members of most mailing lists I’m on, most of them live, or used to live, in the Bay Area.

The recommendations are all local to me, so if you don’t live in the East Bay, they may not be useful to you. But my own top choice (so far) is Starbuck’s in Barnes and Noble, and you can find those scattered in malls near freeways about every five miles throughout the country. The only downside is that they don’t accept the Starbuck’s cards which I seem to accumulate without buying them.

I think any bookstore coffee shop would work as well. I’ve used the wireless internet in Borders several times when traveling, and the coffee is better. Besides, I have a fond memory for the original Borders in Ann Arbor, Michigan, before K-mart bought it and turned it into a chain. Now there was a good bookstore!

Now, however, they’re pretty much identical in terms of books and atmosphere, and Barnes and Noble is closer, right over in El Cerrito Plaza next to the BART station and close to the Central Ave exit from 80/580. It’s easy to find, easy to get to, and there’s plenty of free parking.

Because the cafe is in a bookstore, it’s both quieter and less crowded than a cafe which is just a cafe. There’s a stand-alone Starbuck’s in the Plaza, but it’s usually packed and it’s usually playing music which is loud enough to be distracting, if not quite loud enough to be painful.

There’s also a psychological advantage for me in meeting a prospective writing client in a bookstore. We can walk down the aisles and find out where the client’s book should be shelved once it’s written, and do some preliminary research for the book proposal by checking out the competition.

So thanks very much to Lindy Sinclair for that recommendation.

I do want to mention some of the other suggestions, because they’re good ones.

Claudia L’Amoreaux of Learning Conversations Extreme Coaching recommended Teance’s Celadon Tea Room at 1111 Solano Avenue in Albany, CA, is an elegant location with a big table by the window that works well for meetings with clients.

D.G. tutors ESL students at Au Coquelet on the corner of University and Milvia in Berkeley. I’ve been to Au Coquelet many times, and while it’s location is convenient to the campus and to public transportation, all of the tables I’ve ever sat at have wobbled. The restrooms are also definitely declasse. The staff will, however, let you spend quite a while there undisturbed, and there is a full-service restaurant in the back.

Liz Rutter likes Caffe Trieste on San Pablo Avenue because of the absence of cell phones and laptops. Joan Bobkoff, who took my FileSlinger™ photos, uses it to hold office hours for her students. It tends to be on the crowded and noisy side for my tastes.

Mani Feniger recommended The Junket in El Cerrito Plaza, where her husband meets clients. I’ve been past the Junket a thousand times and have yet to go in, but it has always looked quiet. The Junket is not a coffee shop but a delicatessen specializing in European imports. It might be best to hold off on the German beer on tap when you’re having the first meeting with a new client, though.

Jill Nagle of Get Published prefers Espresso Roma at 1549 Hopkins, near the Monterey Market. (Not to be confused with the Espresso Roma on College Ave at Ashby, which offers wireless service.) This cafe has a large outdoor seating area for use in nice weather, but has a certain shortage of power outlets. That’s not necessarily a downside for me, because I don’t always bring my laptop when meeting clients. It’s just nice to have the option available.

Many thanks to the Brain Exchangers for their recommendations. I’m sorry it’s taken so long for me to put them online.

If you have a suggestion for a great place to meet clients either in the East Bay or elsewhere, click the comment button () at the top of this post or e-mail me.

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