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When you run a business, there will always be some customers that can’t afford what you want to charge them. When that situation arises, you have a number of choices available to you – you could:
(a) Take on the customer, but at a reduced rate(b)Do a success based contract i.e. you only get paid when the project is a success or you get business for them.(c) Turn the customer down
I think at one time or another, most businesses have been tempted by all three of these options, but here’s the thing – business is about being reasonable. As business owners, we are incredibly good at being reasonable to other people, but not so good at being reasonable to ourselves.
If you can afford to take on the customer at a reduced rate or on a success based contract and you’re happy to do this, there’s no reason why not. But, think about how fair is it to you?
We cannot be all things to all people – some people will not be able to afford your products and services. Some people cannot afford to buy Ferraris or Aston Martin either, but they wouldn’t dream of dropping their prices to fit their customer. What’s reasonable to you?
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A common problem for small business owners is the pressure to be all things to all people. People are very scared of letting a client go – just in case they miss out on money coming in through the door. And this is particularly the case when the business is still in its infancy. However, when you’re presented with the option of taking on a new client or getting involved in something, it’s worth asking yourself the question “Does the opportunity fit with what you’re trying to achieve in your business?” I’m a great believer in that we can only concentrate properly on one thing at a time – ok, there are exceptions to the rule, but this is generally the case. If you take on everything and anything that presents itself to you, there is a danger that you will dilute your offering. By concentrating on only opportunities that fit with what your business does and what you’re trying to achieve, you will make everything you do much stronger and become known as an expert in your field.
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For a long time I always resisted having a hobby on the grounds of I didn’t really know what to do and couldn’t find one that interested me enough. And then someone mentioned cross-stitch to me.
Now, I know I’m sad and am now 90 years old, but I did take it up and absolutely love it. It has made me realise how important having a hobby is to your business.
Having a hobby will allow you to get away from the business for a while and focus on something else instead. Every successful business owner that I study and am aware of seems to have a hobby and that’s another reason why it’s important to me too.
Even if you don’t know what to do or don’t think there is a hobby out there to suit you, I’d definitely encourage you to look and try your hand at different things. You might just be pleasantly surprised and your business will definitely benefit as a result!
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I’ve met two business owners this last week who have told me that their clients owe them money but for some reason or another, they haven’t chased it up. This made me think what a common problem this was among small business owners. But I only have one question to ask – are you mad? My philosophy with business is simple – we do the work; we get paid for it. That’s it. End of discussion. Yes, if people aren’t happy for some reason we can talk about it, but in my book that’s still no excuse for not paying. If you’re reluctant to ask for payment in your business, the first thing you need to do is get your attitude sorted out and get tough. People do not get the right not to pay you for things and you have to adopt the attitude that you will not let people get away with not paying. That means, you need to be willing to chase them to the ends of the earth if you have to. I’ve always adopted this attitude in my business – and you know what, we very rarely have a problem because I make it clear that it’s not acceptable. But if you let people take an inch, they will – as the saying goes – take a yard! Don’t let them and get tough on non-payers.
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Let me tell you something. Since the beginning of 2010, people have very definitely been more demanding. They know what they want and they want to get it as quickly as possible. And, they don’t want to really pay top whack for it either. They’re cheekier and will ask for the world and frankly don’t make it very easy for us small business owners. I had an example the other day of a business owner asking me to promote some workshops for him entirely for free and someone else asking me to let them come onto not one, but two of our workshops in exchange for just a link to our website on their site. So, how do you as a small business owner cope with this demanding nature? Well, you need to set some clear boundaries and make sure you stick to them. Know what’s acceptable to you and what’s not and stick to it, no matter how bad you feel. Oh and by the way, that also goes for being paid too. Here’s my updated philosophy since 2010 – it’s ok for the customer to be more demanding and want more for less. I’m fine with that. But, if they do that, they pay on time, every time. Get tough – if people want more, make sure you get more too!
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Over the last few years, I have tried wherever possible to only work with clients that we like working with. We’ve had some erm interesting clients in the past and they always end up bringing the whole team down. Most of the time, I get this right, but occasionally I get it wrong and when we have a client who is hard work, doesn’t pay on time and is a demanding rat, it’s sometimes time to think about letting that customer go. We reach this point in all of our business – and you’ll definitely know when you have a ‘bad’ customer on board. They’ll drain resources, make everyone stressed, take time from other clients, not pay when they’re supposed to and generally bring everyone down. I’m going to ask you the question of are they worth it? Yes, I know in an ideal world you wouldn’t want to lose them as a customer and of course, you want the money, but how much extra are they costing your business when you compare them to all the nice clients you deal with? Have a good hard look at your customers sooner rather than later and if necessary sack them! Believe me, you’ll feel much better once the job is done.
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Saying no is something that I’m actually very bad at. I have had to train myself to get better at this and I’m still not perfect. Problem is whenever I say yes, when I should have said no, it invariably leads to trouble.
Take the time when I committed to running a business game that I’d designed at a networking event one evening. I totally underestimated how long it would take me to do and it so wasn’t worth it. I ended up pulling out at the last minute upsetting the organisers and making myself feel very guilty. What on earth was I thinking?
When you get those occasions (and you know when they are) when you know you should say no, one of the things I’ve trained myself to do is to never answer straight away and to go away and think about it.
Once the pressure is off the situation, I can then think about it logically and decide whether or not I really want to do it. I also think realistically about how much time it will take me too. And if it doesn’t sit comfortably with me, I will then go back to the person and say no.
I still find it hard and still occasionally slip up, but I am getting better. It’s just a matter of practice.
So – your action for this week is to say no and see what happens.
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I watched the Murray/Nadal semi final at Wimbledon on Friday and was thoroughly expecting Murray to win and get through to his first final.
Now, ok he dropped the first set due to a silly error that he made, but he only just lost the second set on tiebreaks and broke Nadal in the third set. Overall, he was playing better than Nadal and should have won the match.
Why did he lose then?
Well, this is where I think attitude comes into play. Murray did not believe that he could win – he did not believe deep down that he could beat Nadal and get through to the final.
There are interesting parallels there with business aren’t there? Do you believe that you’ll be successful? Do you believe that you can beat off everyone else and meet all the goals that you set for yourself? Because do you know what – if you don’t, you won’t do it.
You have to believe and I mean really believe that you can achieve everything that you set out to and even if you have a wobble, you still have to go back to getting focused again and believing that you can.
So, get focused and believe!
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At a networking meeting the other day, we all went round the room and shared our tips for managing our time better. My tip was about putting some boundaries in place. This is all around outlining what you will do and what you won’t do and more importantly, sticking to it! I’ve definitely learnt from experience that the more you have some time boundaries in place, the more time you have. Here are a few examples of time boundaries that I have created for myself: · Not working after 6.30pm. · Not working at weekends.· Not meeting with people unless there is a direct benefit to me.· Having a 15 minute phone call with people before I meet with them to determine the benefit.· Having the right to say “no” to people and projects that don’t interest me and have no benefit to the business.· Not going to evening networking events· If either my husband or myself is back after 7.30pm for whatever reason, the person who is late has to buy/provide dinner for the other person. Are those boundaries hard to stick to? Well, yes sometimes they are. But they’re in place for a reason. You see, what you do in your business and what you spend your time on is to a large extent a choice. I have chosen for instance, to sit here and type this blog rather than to do something else. And if I actively chose to stick to these boundaries and make them work for me, it frees up more time in the day. So your action for today is to define your boundaries. What don’t you do?
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Many business owners want to be successful in business. Many of us have goals written down of things we want to achieve. But let me ask you a question – do you know WHY you want to achieve these things? Knowing why you want to be successful and achieve your goals is equally as important, if not more so than knowing what your goal is in the first place. Knowing the why is what’s going to help you through when the going gets tough and keep you motivated. Let me give you an example of this – I was working with a contact of mine a few years ago who told me her goals for the year. I said that was all very well, but why did she want to achieve these things. She told me that she wanted to quit her part-time job and work on the business full-time. For my contact, knowing this why gave her the momentum to carry on and achieve this success. Years later, not only has she quit her part-time job but also has a thriving business that’s very successful. So, what’s your WHY? Why do you want to achieve the goals that you’ve set for yourself? If you’re clear on the why, you’re much more likely to achieve them.
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What is the biggest reason why business owners don’t accomplish the tasks the set for themselves? Well, the biggest reason is that many business owners are very good at coming up with ideas but not so good on following them through to completion. Let’s face it, it’s easy to get distracted by new ideas that seem more exciting than the one you’re currently working on especially if your project seems hard work. But if you want to achieve your goals and take your business to new levels, it’s essential that you take action and get on with it. If you’re struggling with a task, the best thing you can do is take some action on it – no matter how small, taking action will make you feel as if you are moving forward with the project and will help you to complete it. Set aside some time preferably at the beginning of every day to work on a project that you want to take through to completion and very quickly, you’ll be amazed at the results!
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I learnt something new recently – that if you want people to take action on something, tell them what you want them to do at the beginning and not the end.
When we write or communicate something, we’ve been trained at Brits to explain the whole story first and then finish by telling the other person what we want them to do.
But in marketing terms, I’ve found recently that it’s better to do things the other way round. I’ll give you an example. After meeting someone at a networking event, I will follow up by email suggesting that we have a chat on the phone to find out more about them. I used to put this suggestion at the end of my email and was to be honest, quite disheartened by the lack of response. Recently though, I’ve been trialling putting this suggestion at the beginning and then repeating the suggestion at the end too and wow – what a difference it’s made. I’ve been getting 20-30% of people at the networking event contacting me to arrange a chat on the phone. Compare this with 1-2% response from just putting the suggestion at the bottom and you can immediately see the difference.
So when you communicate with people in the future, tell them what you want them to do at the beginning rather than at the end and see if it makes a difference to you too!
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I had a good reminder today that just when you think you’ve got everything sorted, another thing comes along to sort out. I had an email from someone who had ordered the CDs, but told me about a problem with the ordering process. When he clicked on continue shopping, it took him to the wrong webpage. I’m really grateful for him letting me know about this, but it’s now something else to sort out. And then, I had a call from someone who asked why our phone number wasn’t on the bottom of our emails. I said that it was and then realised that he was talking about our marketing emails where, yes I haven’t put the phone number on the bottom. Aragh! My brain hurts… Off now to go and sort all of this out!
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I’m a firm believer that if you want more business, you should always go back to your existing and past customers first. After all, they know you and your company; hopefully they’re happy with what you did for them and they might just be waiting for you to contact them to help them with what they’re looking for.
All in all, your existing and past customers are always a much easier sell than brand new contacts who have never heard of your business.
Why then, do small business owners look to get new business through the door first rather than go back to their existing or past customers? I think the reasons for this are three-fold:
1. Firstly, new customers are more exciting and confidence boosting than existing ones. Most small business owners get a tremendous buzz from making a new sale.2. There is a fear that if you go back and talk to your existing customers, they may not be happy with what you’ve done for them and they may not want to buy anymore from you.3. Small business owners often don’t know how to go back and ask their existing customers for more business so this puts them off asking.
But, don’t let any of these things put you off. If you communicate with your customers on a regular basis (which you should be doing anyway), by phone, email and face to face, you should not have a problem finding out when they want to buy more from you.
So, today’s question is – are you communicating with your customers as much as you should? Get out there and talk to them today. You may be pleasantly surprised by the orders you get!
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In case it’s escaped your attention, we’ve just recently had an election in the UK. I, for one have been absolutely glued to it – I think it’s been a really interesting contest and certainly an interesting outcome. Having a new coalition made up of the Conservatives and Lib Dems should be fascinating to watch in the coming months and the fact that Vince Cable is the new Business Secretary should be in general good for businesses. But, is the alliance good for business? Well only time will tell. I suspect we will see some sharp rises in Tax and VAT to pay for the deficit, but hopefully when things start getting back on track, these rises will be brought back down again. I certainly think that the cuts and rises will be less harsh than under a Conservative Government alone. So, down to business it is for the Con-Libs, or is that Libservatives or even Con-Dem if you’re feeling unlucky!
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As small business owners, we are all incredibly good at focusing on the negative and forgetting about all the positive things that happen to us. I haven’t met a business owner yet who can’t tell me about all the things that go wrong, but struggle to tell me all the things that go right. And that means that eventually focusing on the negative will bring you down. It’s quite easy actually to go into a negative spiral and when you reach rock bottom, difficult to climb out again – I know, I’ve been there. The trick is to catch when you start to feel down as a small business owner and take some positive action to do something about it. Here’s how: 1. Try to identify what you’re feeling down about (lack of customers, no time etc)2. Set some targets to help you improve this (10 new customers by the end of the week)3. Write some actions to help you achieve this goal4. Get on and do these actions Just by taking some action and getting on with things, you’ll be amazed at how much better you feel in yourself and what opportunities and results come from trying this exercise. Set up a diary for yourself just on www.blogger.com and keep a track on how you feel each day as you complete your actions. You’ll be amazed at the difference that it makes.
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I had an interesting email from someone today. It said, in response to some tips that I’d sent out, “Tip 1: If you want more business, keep your email short”.
Hmm! Clearly not a happy chappy. I asked him if he wanted to unsubscribe from receiving our emails and he said that he did. OK – fair enough.
Which brings me onto today’s question – is the marketing you’re doing annoying people?
It’s a really good question. While none of us set out to deliberately annoy people I’m sure, it’s going to be inevitable that someone out there doesn’t like what you do or how you’re doing it. Unfortunately, no matter how hard you try, you can’t please everyone all of the time.
From my point of view, my philosophy and what Exceptional Thinking stands for is about being useful and helpful to people and I send out tips, information, audio recordings and so on in an effort to do this.
And I can tell you now that some people don’t like the fact that I send out this information, believing instead that I should be more subtle. But I can also tell you that lots and lots of people contact me saying how much they do like what we do. So who should we believe?
At the end of the day, I think you have to believe in yourself and the vast majority of the contacts that you work with. As business owners, we have a tendency to focus on the negative and only listen to the people who criticise us, but that’s not always the true picture.
So, yes – I think it is ok to annoy some people with your marketing. After all, this shows that you’re actually doing some!
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Something happened earlier this week which made me question whether you can prevent things from going wrong. What happened was that the chickens we’d had for the last two years sadly got killed by a fox. It happened early Saturday morning and was (I’m glad to say) extremely quick.
But, could we have prevented this? As they say, hindsight is 20-20 and looking back I believe we made some fundamental changes that resulted in them being killed. For instance, we’d recently let them out at the back of our garden rather than the front – we wanted to let them dig where there was lots of new grass and lots of worms – but it made it more likely that a fox would be able to sense their presence and get them more easily.
We’d also stopped shutting them in at night – it was getting lighter and warmer and we believed they’d be safe – but again, the fact that they were out early in the morning made it more likely that they’d be taken. So, you may be wondering how this applies to business. Well, is there anything that you might be doing at the moment that could lead to problems for you later on? For instance, I caught myself not going to a networking event this morning because we are really busy at the moment, but could this mean that a couple of months down the line, we’ll not have any business coming in through the door? I believe that we all know deep down when the changes or behaviours we’re exhibiting are bad for our business. All we need to do is pay a bit more attention and we can perhaps prevent things from going wrong. Take a good look at your business today and see what you can prevent.
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There’s an interesting thing about being in business – and it’s this. Just when you think you’ve got everything sorted, you end up having to change it again! One of the things I thought I’d got down to a tee was client payments – very few late payers and virtually no bad debters.
But, over the last few months, something strange has happened – clients have become more and more demanding. I can’t blame them for this. We all want more while paying less.
Hand in hand with becoming more demanding though has been an increase in late payment of invoices, which to me is not acceptable. I’m all for getting paid fairly for the work that we do. I put up with this for a couple of months, but then realised that the only reason clients were doing this is because I was allowing it to happen.
So, I’ve cracked down. My new rule is this – I’m ok with clients being more demanding, but they have to pay on time. Our payment terms have always been 14 days, but now I’m emphasising this on the invoices that go out and I’m chasing immediately after the 14 days have expired rather than leaving it until the next month.
If no payment is forthcoming, clients are told that they have no right to be demanding or indeed to expect any work at all until bills are settled. Harsh I know, but I believe life is about being fair and reasonable. If both parties are reasonable, then no problems happen. But if one party is being reasonable and the other isn’t, that leads to issues.
So, my blog for today is about asking yourself – what do you need to take back some control on? Put some new rules in place and you’ll be amazed at the difference in your business.
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When you run a business, obviously one of the things you’ll need to do and do well is promote it. You’ll need to get out to the world who you are, what you do and give out the message that you’re an expert in your field and that you know what you’re doing. When you do this, you will (like it or not) attract some fans. Now, I know you may not have a wish to be seen as a celebrity, but if you do what you do well, people will like you and want to follow you. For most of these people, there’s no harm in this at all. They just like you and take an active and healthy interest in what you do. But, occasionally you will encounter one or two people whose interest in unhealthy and contact boarders on weird. I’ve had my share of these sorts of people in the past and when it happens, I just cut off contact with them and usually they go away of their own accord. But it does beg the question, should you put your personal information on your website and identity who you are when you’re promoting your business? I do know several business owners who have chosen not to and don’t display their address or email on their sites. My feeling is though that if you want to run your business successfully, you have to let go of the paranoia and get yourself out there. Yes, you will attract fans, but hopefully most of them will be ok and your business will be absolutely fine.
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It’s been said (apparently) that all the best business owners – people such as Richard Branson etc – use a diary to capture their success and reflect on what’s worked and what hasn’t. But because I’m not particularly a reflective person preferring to learn my lesson and move on, I haven’t been a big fan of using a diary in the business. But, two business owners have told me just recently how much using a diary has helped them and when more than one person tells me something, I tend to listen. So, last week I set up a personal and private diary on blogger.com and got down to some good quality writing. And do you know what…it has made a massive difference to how I think and feel (much to my surprise). As business owners, we’re extremely good at dwelling on the negative things that have happened, however small instead of any positive things. But having a diary has made me consider both and very quickly I’ve realised that the positive aspects really do outweigh the negative ones. It’s been a place for me to capture my thoughts, reflect on what’s happened and keep motivated and focused. Definitely well worth it and I’m going to make sure I continue to update my diary as the last thing I do before I finish for the night. Is it worth setting up a diary for your business too?
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JUST when you think you’ve got everything sorted and working, I’ve had a multitude of technical teething hitches over the last few days. Now, in the scheme of things these are minor problems, but it just got me thinking how often “minor” problems fill up our time and take us away from concentrating on things that we really need to. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that these minor problems shouldn’t get dealt with. They absolutely should – and in fact, it’s vital to get to them. Otherwise, if you don’t deal with them, they WILL turn into major problems. But, too often we just drop everything to deal with these minor problems rather than planning them into our diaries to deal with properly. The problems that I’ve experienced this week have either been delegated (in this case to my website designer) or I’ve scheduled some time later on this week to look at them properly. That to me is the key to not feeling like you’re fire-fighting all of the time. So, the next time a minor problem occurs with you, be careful about just downing tools and sorting it out there and then. If you don’t have to deal with it right now (in other words, it’s not a life and death emergency), much better to leave it overnight and then plan it into your diary properly to deal with. And…you’ll be amazed by how much better you feel in the morning too!
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One of the things I’m really fascinated with is time management: in particular how we can be more effective in order to get things done. Re-reading Mark Forster’s brilliant “Do it tomorrow and other secrets of time management” the other day, I decided to employ the method of having a Current Initiative for myself each morning.
A Current Initiative is where you choose a project for yourself and work on it for a minimum of 5 minutes first thing every morning – and it really is first thing too, before you’ve got distracted by your emails, an urgent task or even your morning cup of coffee.
My Current Initiative is to review and revise my follow-up series of emails that people receive when they sign up for something from the website. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do (and putting off) for ages.
But, using this method of working on this project for a minimum of 5 minutes a day first thing in the morning is starting to pay dividends. I’m actually starting to make progress on this task which is motivating me to keep working on it and already I’m further down the line than I would have been if I hadn’t been using this method.
(And when I say further down the line, what I mean is that I’ve actually done something – instead of this task being sat on my to-do list for the last three weeks!)
So, if you’re stuck on a project and want to get moving on it, try putting it as your Current Initiative and work on it for just 5 minutes a day first thing every morning. You’ll be amazed at the difference in just a couple of days!
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Recently I did a survey where I asked for feedback on our newsletter and weekly bulletins. The feedback overall was good, but someone made a comment on there that really struck with me. They said that they felt my market had changed to targeting the “bigger entrepreneur” now that I’m growing and expanding my business which was putting this person off a bit, when they felt they were still finding their feet. This made me think – am I doing this? The honest truth is I don’t know. I certainly haven’t intended to and my motto has always been to work with small business owners helping them to break down marketing and make it easy. But, I guess over the last few months, I’ve written about things that I’m experiencing and forgotten that many people haven’t even come across what I’m talking about yet. Maybe there is a lesson here about going back to basics, starting from the beginning and making things easy again. So, thank you to the person who pointed this out. It has made me think and now I’ve got a whole series of articles planned for future weeks!
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A few years ago, we had a client whose project – well, let’s just say it didn’t exactly go to plan. When he called for an update, I made the mistake of telling him exactly what was going wrong and lost the client as a result. Years later, I’ve learnt that actually my job isn’t to tell clients what’s going wrong, but to provide reassurance that the project is going RIGHT. People don’t want to hear about teething problems; they don’t want to know how you’re struggling to do what they’ve asked – what they want to know is that they’ve made the right decision to work with you and that despite any problems, you’re going to go out of your way to sort them out. The art of providing reassurance goes not only for clients, but for your team and anyone who works with you too – they’re looking for you to be the leader and keep them motivated to succeed. So, next time you’re tempted to tell your client or your team that you’re not feeling great or that there has been a problem with a project, just hold back for a second. Remember, your job – to provide reassurance and see what a difference this can make for you.
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I've been in business 7 years this month and to be honest have barely had a day off in all of that time. Yes, ok, there has been the occasional cold which has made me miserable, but I've still been sat at my desk or going out to events and battling through. But then last week, I woke up on Sunday morning to an intense pain down my right leg leaving me unable to really walk. A few visits to doctors and physios later and I find out I've slipped a disc in my back which steadily gets worse as the week wears on. By Thursday last week, I was unable to sit down for more than a few seconds without being in agony and doing pretty much anything was impossible. Now, I'm not very good at being in pain and I'm certainly not used to being able to do anything. The team were brilliant and rallied around to keep everything ticking over, but it was still no substitute for me being at the driving helm of the business. So, it made me think. Firstly, about having contingency plans in place for if I am ever ill in the future. Things like everyone knowing who client's are, how to operate the website, how to send out a newsletter etc. Secondly, it also made me realise even more than the business technically should be able to run without me (I know it always says that in business books, but it doesn't really hit home until something happens). And then finally, it made me think about having some sort of plans in place for medical care should I need it - believe me 4 trips to the physio in just over a week starts to get very expensive. Funnily enough though one of our contacts, Keith Iliffe from WPA - www.wpa.co.uk/keithiliffe or call on 07985 175 763 provides top up health insurance that could have sorted me out quickly during this period. Perhaps I'll be giving him a call this week...
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I think the worse thing about doing a new project in your business is the last little bits. We've been experiencing this just this week with the new website. It's 95% there and yet there are still a multitude of 'little' changes to make.
I say 'little' as it seems to me that each one takes way over an hour to do. Yesterday, I did nothing else but updated emails and set up new bits and pieces for the site. By 8pm, I was still nowhere near to completing it and have a ton of stuff to do today.
I've lost count of the number of times that Sam (our wonderful site designer on the Graduate Challenge Scheme) have sat down and gone through the entire site writing a to-do list of changes that need to be made. He leaves tomorrow evening though so it's even more pressing that everything we need to do is completed in the last couple of days.
The most annoying thing though is that it's very difficult to get on with other work as this is now the priority!
So, I think the only thing you can do when you're finishing off a project is decide what has to be done now - get on with that and then update the rest as you go on.
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Happy New Year to everyone out there! We've just launched our brand new website at http://www.exceptionalthinking.co.uk/index.php/home. Have a look - I really hope you like it.
We're just making some final tweaks to it so hopefully the shop will be up and running by the end of the week, but pretty much everything else works and is there so have a look around and let me know what you think. 2010 is an exciting year for us. There's lots of new things coming and being launched and it's definitely my goal to help more small businesses than ever this year with their marketing.
I've also set myself a monthly challenge too - you see there are parts of my marketing that I struggle with as well. So I've set myself a monthly challenge to get on with something that I've been putting off. You can find out what it is, support me, take part with me or do your own task along side me by becoming a member. Check out our membership programme, which is all about taking action now!
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OK, I admit - at the beginning of last week, I had 87 tasks on my to-do list. These mainly consisted of tasks that I wanted to get out of the way before Christmas. But with only 2 weeks to go before we 'break up' for 2 weeks, I finally had to be realistic with myself and realise that much as I'd like to, I wasn't going to get everything finished. So, in order to be clearer with myself, I asked the question of "what are my priorities?" between now and the 18th December? And the answer was "finishing off the website." Once I'd focused, I cleared my to-do list and on it are only items involved with finishing off the website. Because I now know what my priorities are, it's meant that I'm much more likely to get this finished instead of trying to do everything. So in the last two weeks before Christmas, do you know what your priorities are for your business? This isn't your to-do list, this is asking yourself what the big things are that you want to get finished and out of the way. Once you know, you'll be much more focused and can work on finishing off these tasks.
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This morning I had a "can't be bothered moment". It probably resulted from having cold all week and not sleeping properly, but all I wanted to do was go home and go back to bed. Knowing I couldn't really do that (it doesn't really set a good example to my team), I procrasinated for a couple of hours and then (just before I wrote this post), I gave myself a good talking to and decided to get on with completing just 5 things. While some would argue that I shouldn't have pushed myself at that point and had the afternoon off, my argument is that none of us can really afford to do that. We all have deadlines, things that need to be done, planned and completed before we can have a break. It's not like I don't have anything to do and for the most part I'm pretty excited about doing them. And if I don't, who will? So, next time you have a "can't be bothered moment", give yourself a shake and make yourself get on with just a few tasks. Believe me (I'm currently on task 3 of 5), I feel loads better already and when I've done the 5, maybe I'll challenge myself to go for 10 tasks!
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There's been lots of changes happening at Exceptional Thinking recently and I feel very much like Willy Wonka keeping everything secret so that everything can be revealed at the same time.
But, gradually things are coming together and this is what will be happening in the New Year: - We will be launching our brand new website. It's getting close to the point of completion now and we'll be looking to test it shortly. By the way, if you'd like to be one of the testers and get a sneak preview, please email me on helen.dowling@exceptionalthinking.co.uk
- We will also be launching a new members area where members will have much more help with their marketing from us without paying a fortune. They will get access to calls, action plans, marketing audits and 1-2-1 meetings with me to name but a few things. Very excited about this - watch this space!
- We'll also be doing more workshops, more telecalls, and lots more working with people individually to help them get the most out of their marketing.
We've recently taken on Nicky Benton to help us out in addition to Trudi Hayden and I hope by the end of 2010, we'll have another person on board too. So, there's lots of changes afoot for the year ahead and I'm really excited about sharing the new changes with you. Keep checking back for more...
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Yesterday, I went out to lunch - which was lovely by the way and I really enjoyed it. That's the second time in three weeks that I've done this, but it's unusual for me and I think I've only done this twice since the business started. Yes, sure I've gone out for business lunches and met clients etc, but going out for lunch for pleasure during work hours is completely alien to me. What's worse is I didn't do any work when I came back either (shock, horror)! And do you know what - I didn't feel any guilt at all. I've worked incredibly hard this year and have decided it's now high time to start treating myself. Not every day, but every couple of weeks or so - especially when I've worked hard. I read an article recently about taking time off to recover BEFORE you start on a major project and maybe the author was right - I feel much better this morning and ready to get cracking. It's easy to feel guilty about taking time off when you're supposed to be working, but if you deserve it, don't! I guarantee it will make you feel better and more motivated and you'll want to do more work as a result.
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Last week was a tough week emotionally. For the first time, I had a real appreciation of why, when larger companies are asked to participate and give money to charities and organisations, they say "no" more often than not. It's because they don't have the time, energy or money to participate in everything. Sadly though, the charities and organisations that are asking very often don't understand and get angry with the response given back to them. I realised how these companies feel because last week I had to face the same situation. My natural tendency is to get involved in things and say "yes" to voluntary activities. This was fine when the business was young and getting involved helped me to get known and to get established. But, we're not in the same situation anymore. The business is growing up, meaning that we haven't got as much time as we once did. It's more important now more than ever to stay focused on where we want to be and what we need to do to get there, rather than being distracted by things that take us away from this. As a consequence, I'm slowly learning that we have to say "no" to more things, be firmer and not let people take advantage, but this is tough for someone who's been used to being helpful and getting involved. Last week, I had to deal with 5 situations that really tested my resolve and because I'm still learning to say "no" I didn't handle the situation as well as I could have. It was tough emotionally and the team and I felt a bit demotivated. So, time to move on this week - let go of the past and move the business forward. Be firm and don't agree to things that take my focus away from this. I'll let you know how I get on.
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Ahhh! How many times do I have to repeat myself? I have talked before about BUILDING a relationship with people before you ask them for something and yet I have two requests in the last two weeks that want me to just do things for people even though I don't know them, trust them or know anything about them. Both of these requests have been to speak on our workshops. Fact is, it takes a lot of time and effort to get bums on seats for these - why should I let someone come along and take advantage of that and speak on it when we've done all the hard work? Oh and did I mention these people want to be paid for speaking as well!! As you can see, I'm pretty passionate about this subject. Please, please, please remember that most small business owners have NO time, are VERY busy and if you want something out of them, you really need to think about what's in it for them. Why should they do something that benefits only you? These business owners could have said: - Would you like to run a workshop together - we can both jointly market it to our lists?
- I'm happy to come and speak for free
- In return for me speaking at your event, I'd like to invite you to come and speak at mine
And so on... Then, I might have been more willing to consider this. But, until the day comes that some small businesses actually think about more than themselves, I guess I'm just going to be posting furious posts about this subject. Anyone else experienced this? |
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I had an email from a client this week entitled "Your phones aren't working". He'd tried to call us and found it went through to some completely random person we'd never heard of.
Turns out that it was completely our fault and we'd just diverted the phones wrongly instead of to our call minding company who answer the phones for us when we can't.
But it got me thinking about how easy it is to make silly mistakes. And while the above mistake wasn't serious and it was corrected easily, it does have an impact on how people perceive us.
Now I know mistakes will happen in the future and I think that's just one of those things we'll have to accept, there are procedures and systems we can put in place to minimise mistakes happening. For instance, I can put the number to our call minding company on the wall next to my desk so that I can refer it to as I'm typing it into the phone. I can also listen to the number as the automated voice reads it back to check I've done this correctly.
If you look at any business, there are probably loads of simple systems and procedures that can be put into place that minimise mistakes from happening, but also speed things up too. I can think of several I'm going to be implementing in ET over the next few months. What simple systems could you put into place in your business?
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You know how businesses who provide computer services are always talking about the importance of backing up your documents? Well, this week I found out why. I was working on a marketing tender to send into an organisation that was looking for a marketing company. I'd just reached page 54 because the organisation wanted your inside leg measurement when my computer crashed and I honestly thought for a second that I'd lost the lot. Luckily my computer restored the document for me and I didn't lose my work, but this experience really did make me realise why those computer companies stress this as crucial. Imagine if it wasn't just that document, but our whole client files and our databases that went missing! We do back up on a regular basis, but it's weekly rather than daily - backing up more often is definitely on my to-do list now!
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I reached a shocking conclusion the other day - I can't do everything! (Yes I know. I bet you're as shocked as I am).
That means that I have to prioritise what I want or need to get done and then get around to the little things that don't really matter or don't have an impact on the business as and when.
But it also does mean that I have to be a lot firmer with my time and recognise when people are trying to steal it. Have a think about all the things you're involved in right now. All the things you volunteer for or are happy to do because you're a nice person. Well, I've had to be ruthless and ask the question "Can I justify this person/this activity using up my time?"
To be honest, it's not something that I like doing - I like getting involved in things and I like being helpful. But I also do recognise that if I want to take ET to the next level, I'm going to have to cut out this "helping" behaviour and say "no".
So, my question today is who or what is stealing your time? Are you happy to continue to let people or things steal your time and if not, what are you going to do to stop it happening?
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Last week, I went to a well known networking group as a visitor. While I was there, the Chair of the group gave a speech about the fact that some people go to networking events purely as hunters. These are the people who email everyone afterwards, he said, just pushing their own services. He then went onto explain why the networking group wasn't like that and then spent the next hour trying to sell the group. Here's where I disagree. I'm a great believer in that if you just go to a networking event once and don't contact anyone afterwards, then very little business will come out of this as a result. You do need to follow up with people. That's why these networking groups work - because you're seeing people every time the groups meet, you're effectively following up with everyone there on a continuous basis. However, you're not selling - you're just building a relationship with them. I'm not knocking this approach - it does work! But, if the event you attend isn't a membership group or for some reason you don't want to join it, you also need to follow up with people, albeit in a different way. This though shouldn't be purely emailing people selling your own services. My approach is to follow up with people after the event to see whether they would like to have a 15 minute chat on the phone. The aim of this is NOT to sell. The aim of this (like the networking events) is to build a RELATIONSHIP with people. My approach has worked for me and my clients for years and as far as I'm concerned there's nothing wrong with this. So, yes if after a networking event all you do is contact people with the aim of SELLING your products and services, I completely agree with this Chairman that you're a hunter. However, if you contact people with the aim of building a RELATIONSHIP, perhaps the networking approach and my approach are exactly the same.
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This week, I have the opportunity to interview two students under a scheme called Graduate Challenge. This means that I get a student for free for 4 months to complete a project. Yes, ok I'll have to buy a desk and a couple of other bits and pieces, but what a great opportunity for both ET and the student!
That's my thoughts anyway. I've always been a great believer in looking for other ways to do things based on the assumption that if plan A doesn't work, there's always another way.
But, you'd be amazed at the amount of people who disagree with me and think if you want something doing, you MUST pay for it and you MUST go down the traditional route. Talking to people with the 'you can't do that' attitude does tend to knock your confidence.
So, my question this week is when do you go against the grain? At what point do you say "I'm a bigger business now, I must go more down the traditional route?" Or, do you continue to be innovative and look for other ways to do things?
Very interested to hear your thoughts.
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Well, September is just around the corner. That means, if you start your financial year in April, 6 months have almost gone. So, how are you doing on your plan this year? Is it time to dig out what you wrote down earlier in the year and give it an update? September is always a good time to just check in with yourself and make sure you're still on track with everything. Perhaps some of the ideas you came up with are no longer valid and you need to change your plans. Whatever the situation, it's time to gear up again after your August break, so dig out your plans, update them if necessary so that you're all set and ready to go come September.
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Last night, I was reading an article about whether other people are better at telling us what we're thinking than we are ourselves. I'm a firm believer that other people can absolutely pick up on how we're feeling. Have you ever been to a networking event and not been feeling your best? Do you find yourself surrounded by other people or do they naturally stay away from you? If it's the latter, other people may be picking up on your vibes and stay away from you even if you're trying your hardest to hide how you're really feeling. This also means that if you're desperate for business and are feeling quite depressed about things, others will pick up on this and stay away from you when you want them to do the opposite. If you want to attract rather than repel people, you need to be giving out the message that you want people to come and speak to you and to do this, you need to really believe it. So, try thinking positively for the next couple of days and see what difference it makes!
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In an effort to have more of a work-life balance recently, my husband and I set some boundaries. We would only work 8-5.30pm, have weekends off and go out with friends more for socialising. So, a heavy weekend and 5 late nights socialising with friends later, I've decided that burning the candle at both ends probably isn't the best thing to do in the world. It's all very well having a life, but there's the thing about the balance that I seem to be missing. I've decided that waking up with a headache and not feeling your best is definitely not the way to a great working day and neither is all work and no play. How do we get that balance then? Well, it's certainly not about going from one extreme to the other. Maybe it's about both work and life in moderation. I'll be practising the balancing in the future then.
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When you're running a small business, you will inevitability have suppliers that provide products or services to you. From website designers to accountants to banks, several companies will be providing you with a service. But sometimes, the supplier you're with isn't performing up to scratch and now (with the economy like it is) you may be considering changing them. So, the question you need to ask yourself is should you stick with the devil you know or change to someone else who could provide you with a better service? If you're considering changing suppliers, the first thing you should do before you change them is talk/email your existing supplier and tell them what you're not happy with. You'll be amazed how often they'll be prepared to bend over backwards to accommodate your request. A recent supplier of ours cut their prices in half when we asked about it. But you won't know unless you ask. If talking doesn't work, then you'll need to start shopping around. Always ask for a trial with a new supplier. That way, it gives you a chance to try them out while still sticking with your existing supplier. If you don't like the new supplier, you haven't lost out by dropping your old supplier. Be specific about the service and product that you're expecting from the new supplier and make sure it's written down. That way, if there's problems, you've got something to refer to. Trial periods and being specific should help to cut down on any problems with new suppliers, but remember talking to your existing provider can work wonders too.
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This morning, I did a teleconference with a marketing person - the aim being to give this away as a free recording to my contacts.
I'd done a bit of research and had come up with a site called No Cost Conference - www.nocostconferenc e.co.uk which looks liked it was the ideal site for me. Ok, the controls didn't exactly seem to be intuitive, but once I'd found my way around I thought I knew what I was doing.
So, Kim (the marketing person) and I did the call at 10.30am this morning. It went great, sounded great and I was really looking forward to downloading my recording of it.
I went back into the control panel after the call and to my horror, discovered that it wasn't there. Actually, what I needed to do (which they hadn't pointed out) is press the record button on the control panel - I assumed that this would happen automatically.
Nightmare! We're now going to have to the call again, which is a great shame as both of us have just wasted an hour doing something which didn't record.
Now do I wish I'd check to make sure I knew what I was doing and how it worked before I started the conference. Yep! Don't think I'll make that mistake again!
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This morning, I decided not to attend a networking event that I was booked onto. Why? Well, three reasons really. The first was the pile of stuff sitting on my desk looking at me and the second and probably more honest reason is that my hubby is in China at the moment with work and I hadn't spoken to him for 3 days. Because of the time difference, the only opportunity that I have to speak to him would have been when I was at the networking event. Oh and the third reason was the 1 hour travelling time either side. So, I decided not to go. But, not going to places has consequences. There could have been a contact there who really needed what we do. The speaker could have been excellent and given me lots of ideas to help develop the business and of course, I have missed the opportunity to spread the awareness around about ET and what we do. Weighing up the two sides of the argument, it begs an interesting question - when do you say that you're not doing to go to that networking event in favour of other work? I guess that depends on you and your business, but at the moment, in the current economic climate, I think that probably I made the wrong call this morning. Surely, now more than ever it's important to get your message out there and take advantage of all the opportunities that come along. Lesson learnt!
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We’ve all heard the saying that the best way to eat an elephant is a piece at a time. And we’ve probably all been told that if we’ve got a task to do that is difficult, we should break it down into small chunks. But, have you ever tried it – I mean really tried it? I’ve known this principle for a while, but I haven’t really tried breaking a task right down until very recently. Sometimes on my to-do list though, there’s a task that I really, really don’t want to do. Even if it won’t take very long, if I don’t want to do it, it will literally sit there for days and days. And sometimes, even weeks! I know when it’s a difficult task too because it feels like hard work and I’d rather do ANYTHING instead of that task. Over the last couple of days though, I’ve found a possible way around that – to break the task down and keep breaking it down until it feels manageable. Let me give you an example. I’m making some calls at the moment for a company – only 10 of them, but they feel like really hard work. So instead of putting “Do calls for x” on my to-do list, I’ve put “Do call 1 for x”, “Do call 2 for x”, “Do call 3 for x” and so on and really been specific about what the task is. What’s great about this is that when I’ve done one call, I can tick it off my to-do list instead of having to wait until I’ve done all of them. It’s a lot more motivating I can tell you. And you know what – all the calls are done now too! So, if you’re stuck on a task, try really breaking it down until the point where it doesn’t feel like hard work and then get on with it. Even if you do the task one bite at a time, I promise you’ll eat the whole elephant.
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I beretted myself this morning for sending out the newsletter with the words of "I'm running the Race for Life shortly and I'm dreading it." Or rather I was fine with putting that out until I got three responses from lifecoaches telling me how they could help me with that. Then I thought "Ah...I wasn't expecting that response." Fact is, I was exaggerating a little. Firstly to get sympathy; secondly to get sponsorshop - by the way if you want to sponsor me (please please) you can at: http://www.justgiving.com/helendowling and finally to have something to write as an introduction to the newsletter. My comment though was not an invitation to pitch services to me - on the one hand, I suppose they deserve a well done for taking advantage of the opportunity. On the other, it's more work for me having to explain why I'm not looking for their services. I know everyone is looking for new business at the moment, but remember if you do marketing in other ways, people will have heard about you and will be approaching YOU rather than the other way round. A better response, may have been to send me an article that you've written (or quickly put together) on this subject with some handy tips about what to do about it. I'm much more likely to consider you then if I'm in the market for your services. So, think carefully about how you could respond to this type of comment - there may well be a better way than just pitching your services directly.
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As small business owners, one thing that tends to happen is that we get to know ourselves very well. We know what stresses us out; what makes us end the day on a high and we learn what makes us stay positive or results in us feeling down. The key for me staying positive (and it may well work for you too) is this. Whenever I feel down, it's usually because I haven't set some goals to achieve - I know that if I've got goals in place that motivate me and make me want to get up in a morning, I'm more likely to stay positive. And if I can see that I've got an action plan in place to achieve these goals, that's going to make me feel motivated for longer too. So, how are you feeling at the moment? If you're not feeling great, why not try setting yourself some goals that get you excited again? Set up an action plan to get cracking on them and see whether you feel any differently.
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I didn't vote in the elections yesterday, which is highly unusual for me. In the past, I've always voted reasoning that if you're given the right to vote, you really should have your say. But yesterday, I decided to abstain from my right and not vote. Why? Well quite frankly, if small business owners had behaved the way that MPs have in the past few weeks with their expenses, I think most of us would have gone to jail. All of them seem to be as bad as each other at the moment and it makes me very angry that the very people who set the rules and instruct small businesses to pay tax, national insurance, P.A.Y.E and VAT, which the vast majority of us do on time without question, have themselves abused the system. So, had there been a box on the voting form that says "I do not wish to vote" I would have ticked this, but as there was not, I consciously decided not to vote on this occasion. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
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At a networking event this morning, an old business contact came up to me and said "that's really interesting. I was just thinking about HR advisors as I was driving here and now you've turned up so you should be flattered." I assured him that I was very flattered, but that I didn't actually do HR! Whoops. I then had to remind him that we did marketing for small businesses and he ended up feeling embarrassed; I ended up feeling embarrassed and he took me to one side afterwards and apologised. I bet that was a great start to his day at 7am this morning. The moral of this story is that is you don't know who someone is or what someone does, don't guess. Either make polite noises and then look them up when you get back to the office or ask them. If you guess, I'm pretty willing to bed that your guess will be wrong and then you'll be embarrassed as both my contact and I were this morning. This encounter was memorable for all the wrong reasons! Don't let it happen to you.
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 Yesterday, I received an email from a contact of mine. He referred to a promotion I'd been running and asked why I was not keeping the promotion going if it was working so well.
From his email, he'd completely missed the fact that I'd actually been running the promotion for the last two weeks and had reached the deadline I had told everyone about. As such, I needed to end the promotion for that reason.
It made me realise that although we're always told people have to see a message 7-10 times before they register it, this is sooo true.
On hindsight, I should have referred to the promotion in the latest email and said that the deadline had passed and it was ending - because my contact had only noticed this email, it appeared out of context and didn't make sense to him.
So, yes you absolutely need to repeat your message and keep repeating it, but I also learnt a valuable lesson in that I need to refer to the relevant promotion in each communication. It may be the 5th message from me, but it may have only just caught someone's eye and they need to know what I'm talking about too.
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