Penny Power’s Social Networking Poem

His and Hers Rules for Working from Home

Lunch breaks are more fun when you work from home.

Do you work from home? Are you thinking about it? I’ve been home-based since 2007 and I love it – I relish the autonomy, the flexibility and simply being able to look out of my window and see the red kites soaring over the garden.  And of course, working from home comes into its own when you’re snowed in!

Like all good things though, it doesn’t come without a few disadvantages.  The fact that I am also self-employed means that my income is variable and not guaranteed, domestic responsibilities often compete with my work and one thing I learnt early on is that you definitely can’t work and look after children at the same time – childcare is still a must.

My husband has recently started a home-based job and as home-working becomes evermore popular, more couples will find themselves in the same boat and it will be interesting to see the different attitudes that partners have to home-working.   Here are some examples, not based on anyone in particular, of course!

Her		Him
“I’ll be able to spend more time with the kids.”		“Can we get a lock for this door?”
“I’ll catch up with my email on the laptop and watch the children at the same time.”		“That laptop would make a great softphone.”
“I never need to miss another school play.”		“I can play footie whenever I want.”
“We can get to the play in plenty of time.”		“You drive, me conference.”
“When the kids get sick, I’ll just have to juggle things the best I can.”		“I think I’ll go into the office for a few days, that looks nasty.”
Him		Her
“So the kids are at nursery all day, you say?”		“Don’t even think about it!”

What do you think? Do you and your partner work from home? Do you have different attitudes, different expectations and why is that? Are differences mostly down to gender or the type of work you do? Please do post your stories here – the good, the bad and the ugly!

Catherine Osborn is a freelance writer who helps to take the pain out of creating well-written, compelling copy and is offering one free and four half-price PR proofreads in January.  Find out more at www.catherineosborn.com.

Make New Year’s Resolutions Worth Keeping with the One Goal Rule

January is traditionally the month for making resolutions. Like it or not, even Ebay and other organisations use this theme, to market their sites after Christmas.

The problem is, around 60-80% of all resolutions are broken in the first few weeks!

If your intention is to make more effective (and lasting) resolutions this year, you could download one of my articles with hints and tips on the subject here.

If, on the other hand, you don’t believe much in resolutions or are certain they just don’t work for you then I would like to help you to make just one change that will have a positive impact on your business or career this year.

There is no fixed plan, just ask yourself what really needs to change?  What have you been doing that’s not producing the results you want? What do you need to do more (or less) of. What could you learn to do better? If you can think of something that needs to change, how you are going to achieve it?

Or to recap from my blog “Out with the Old, In with the New” in December, what message have you taken on board from 2009 that you will act on in 2010?

If you can just identify one thing that you are going to do differently this year, you will make a noticeable and positive impact in your job or business, trust me!  And it doesn’t even have to be big.

A Chinese proverb says “A journey of 1000 miles begins with one single step”.

So, what single step will you take now to achieve a successful and prosperous new year?

Ute Wieczorek-King is an experienced trainer, mentor and business coach who specialises in helping busy women be more efficient, productive, profitable and in control of their business or career. Author of the e-book “How to Write a Simple 12 Month Plan”, she has also written a number of free inspirational articles for women in business. For more information please visit Success Network, a not-for-profit business community website. http://www.successnetwork.org.uk/articles.htm

How to use Facebook for business

Facebook has been criticised as a social medium that is aimed more towards the social side and less towards business activities.

Well, this was proved wrong by Perry, my beautician friend. She effectively used Facebook to combine social and business together to further her success.

She has just launched her new unisex beauty salon called Perry’s Beauty in Caversham, a well-to-do part of Reading. It is a wonderful place, full of purple and white (we have a lot in common), large, airy and welcoming. It’s not like a usual salon which tend to be pink and fluffy.

This was a big venture for her, because at just aged 22, she spent all her savings on what she had always wanted, her own beauty business. She also has a fantastic business brain and hopes to start franchising her business brand within the next few years – I wish her well, as I can certainly see her potential.

She wanted to create a large launch party in October and invite all her friends. The incentives were bubbly on arrival, with five minute therapies available, an enticing raffle draw and a collection towards her favourite charity. The launch was to raise awareness of her new premises, and to encourage word of mouth advertising.

She used Facebook to invite all her friends, of which 100 responded and attended the party. It was like sardines in her little salon. The press came and she got two huge write-ups in the local newspapers.

She updates her Facebook Group Page with photographs of her salon and information about her services, and aims to post special offers every month. And her clear, bright, purple branding is working, as she gets new clients every day from passing trade, plus referrals and recommendations.

By the beginning of the New Year she will start looking for an assistant so she can stay open for longer to treat more customers, and to stop working such long hours. She needs more time to work on her business, not just in it, and that includes updating her social networking profiles and pages.

How to use Feedburner to feed into Twitter

This is yet another way to feed your blog posts into Twitter, along with Tweetmeme, Twitterfeed.com and a plug-in called ‘WP to Twitter’.

You should subscribe to Feedburner to activate subscriptions to your blog.  Any followers who want to keep an eye on your blogging activities are able to receive new posts once they are published, either direct into their search engine readers or as emails into their in-boxes.

The ‘Publicize’ tag makes available a number of extras to help promote your blog, and one of them is called ‘Socialize’ (the highlighted one in the left hand sidebar in the picture below) which allows your new posts to be published in Twitter.

Your Twitter followers will then be able to read your latest blog post, which is automatically tweeted with a shortened link. As you can see at the bottom, you can adapt the tweet with a pre-text message if necessary.

You will need to allow Feedburner to communicate with your Twitter account, and tick the ‘include link’ and ‘leave room for retweets’ boxes. Don’t forget to activate the application, and the job is done!

So why should you feed your posts into Twitter? This increases your blog’s audience through your Twitter followers, therefore exposing it to a higher number of possible subscribers and commenters.

Never be worried about multiple tweets of your blog posts, as Twitter is an ever-moving phenomenon that has continuous traffic (a bit like a train station) that never stands still, so mass tweeting will always catch someone new who is passing by who might just appreciate your post enough to subscribe to your blog.

‘Out With The Old, In With The New’ – How Taking Stock Can Deliver Ultimate Business Success

How has 2009 been for you?  What is your greatest achievement?  What are you really proud of this year?

If it’s been a tough year for you, in which you experienced more lows than highs, then you may be forgiven for not wanting to dwell too much on it, by moving on.  However, it is always a good idea to consider what didn’t go quite so well, as well as acknowledging your successes.  That way, you step into the new year in a much more proactive and positive frame of mind.

I invite you to take a little time out and consider these simple questions:

• What went well…and why?
• What didn’t go well…and why?

It can be really helpful to try and understand the reasons why something did or didn’t go well. By understand not just how things went but why, you will understand what you need to do more and less of next year.  This process of analysis and self-improvement will ultimately make you more successful at what you do!

Let’s presume that one of the things that didn’t go well this year, is not having attracted enough clients. Whilst there may be an obvious cause, is it a little too easy to blame the economy?  Instead I would encourage you to dig deeper by asking ‘why else?’, ‘why else?’, ‘why else?’ just like a curious child that is not happy with the answers he or she is given!  You may find that the real reasons quickly become apparent.

For example, maybe all that’s missing is a lack of skill or marketing knowledge. Or maybe you‘ve lost a client because you were afraid to ask for feedback, consequently missing an opportunity to improve your service. Or you neglected the chance to understand your clients’ needs better, enabling you to sell them something else.  Perhaps you didn’t make enough time to work ‘on’ the business either this year, because you were too busy working ‘in’ it?

Whatever the real reasons, maybe ‘Out with the old’ could mean getting rid of the obstacles that stop you from performing at your best – poor motivation, procrastination, fear or a lack of confidence.  And maybe it’s time to get rid of these once and for all!

And as for ‘bringing in the new’, this could mean bringing hidden talents to the fore, investing in your personal development, acquiring new skills and, little by little, stepping out of your comfort zone.

Go on, turn over a new leaf, and grow yourself and your business along with it – you can do it!

Ute Wieczorek-King is an experienced trainer, mentor and business coach who specialises in helping busy women be more efficient, productive, profitable and in control of their business or career. Author of the e-book “How to Write a Simple 12 Month Plan”, she has also written a number of inspirational articles for women in business. For more information please visit Success Network, a not-for-profit business community website. http://www.successnetwork.org.uk

6 Productivity Tips to Manage an IT crisis in your Home Office

When I experienced problems with my new business broadband that lasted more than 2 months, my productivity was under threat and communication became a bit of a challenge, to say the least! Often there was little certainty that I could go online when I needed to send messages or files.

Having a Plan B was crucial and mine was a) being aware where I was able to access wireless areas, and b) that I could use mobile broadband when there was no wireless access available.

Sadly, I found mobile broadband temperamental as the signal wasn’t always strong enough. Luckily for me though, I was used to not being permanently glued to my inbox anyway! My favourite email productivity tip is to switch off email alerts, and have set times to read and reply to email.

When my internet was down I found these additional tips really useful:

• Receiving email on my mobile – this is not just an option for Blackberry or iphone users; my smartphone helped me process really urgent incoming email.
• Rearranging my daily schedule, and planning email downloads / writing sessions once a day, somewhere where I could go online. Adding timeslots before or after meetings helped too when dealing with email away from the home office.

I did manage reasonably well until my netbook crashed irretrievably! I then temporarily lost my diary and with it the ‘brain’ of my business. Before long, I was suffering from a slightly more serious form of ‘IT Stress’ and for once my family couldn’t blame any emotional outbursts on my hormones!

Until I recovered my data several days later (are your systems all backed up?) I tried to continue working, somehow, and make the best of a situation I had little control over:

• Firstly, I reacquainted myself with my online web mail. As an Outlook fan who uses rules, flags, tasks and folders quite diligently, here I found everything in one holding place including the junk mail. It was good to have access to all my previous and current email, but can you imagine having a large kitchen in which all your cutlery, crockery and groceries are in one storage area without any shelves or any other divider system? I now keep this area a bit tidier; I never know when I might need it again!
• Fortunately, I found that even for a busy person like me, who balances several different projects, it was still OK to respond to email just once a day, without experiencing any major repercussions.
• If you are an active social networker, then spending less time updating blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter can be difficult. For me, these have become alternative and quite useful forms of communication, and I have now started to use my smartphone and its internet access much more than I used to.
• If, as in my case, your diary is in your netbook which you take everywhere due to its portability, you must make sure that apart from all the other files, your diary is backed up and preferably synchronised with another phone or computer. I will be upgrading my phone next to give me easier access to my diary, as well as an easier way to synchronise the info. (n.b. Some people still think that using a paper diary is safer, until they lose it! This does happen, so some form of back up solution may be useful here as well.)

Of course, there are other solutions to effective communication, like making a call rather than emailing! This can be harder for busy people who find that email actually saves them time. After all, it’s their choice when to write to someone, rather than when office hours dictate they should write.

When you write as many emails as I do, then using calls for updates or queries can take far longer. Whilst you may be thinking that it is possible to get to the point quickly during a call, can you really do that when you haven’t spoken to some of your contacts for some time? Also, you can’t really call your colleagues during the 10 o’clock news just because you suddenly have a fresh burst of energy!

So, after spending hours on the phone one day I discovered that one of the ways round this was to leave voicemail messages or send text messages at times when I knew people wouldn’t necessarily want to answer their calls.

And beyond that, when I did chat for longer on the phone, I used the time as a valuable opportunity to connect with someone I may not have spoken to for a while. Whilst I may have lost time, I have most likely gained in other ways!

There are different ways to stay on top of your work, and stay in touch when an IT crisis affects your business communication and threatens your productivity. And it’s good to know that in emergencies there isn’t just one way to work and communicate. As in so many other areas of business, flexibility is key!

Ute Wieczorek-King

Ute Wieczorek-King is an experienced trainer, mentor, business coach who specialises in helping busy women be more efficient, productive, profitable and in control of their business or career. Author of the e-book “How to Write a Simple 12 Month Plan”, she has written a number of inspirational articles for women in business, available to download from Success Network, a not-for-profit business community website. http://www.successnetwork.org.uk/articles.htm

Why Perfection Can Add to Seasonal Stress

The media can often make us believe that with the right amount of preparation the Christmas celebration can be perfect: a romantic festive period during which work parties are always fun, family gatherings go well, people are relaxed, with everyone showing their best side. And last but not least …. we look and feel fantastic throughout.

With the ‘can do’ attitude we apply in our businesses, many women strive to be perfect – a state we are led to believe is the norm.  But however much we would like to achieve perfection at this special time of year, the reality can look quite different!

Relationships that have been under pressure the rest of the year, won’t necessarily be at their best at Christmas time.  Loneliness, stress, illness, overtiredness and overindulgence all add to stress levels and can lead to tears!

Having realistic expectations of the festive season and all it entails may help you make the best of it.  Whilst this may mean lowering your expectations, wouldn’t that be a good exchange in return for feeling more relaxed and able to enjoy the festive season?

Ute Wieczorek-King is an experienced trainer, mentor and business coach who specialises in helping busy women be more efficient, more productive, more profitable, and more in control of their business or career.  Author of the e-book “How to Write a Simple 12 Month Plan”, she has also written a number of inspirational articles for women in business, available to download from Success Network, a not-for-profit business community website. http://www.successnetwork.org.uk/articles.htm

3 Top Tips for a Stress-Free Christmas Season

Doesn’t time just seem to be speeding up at this time of year?! For a lot of women this is the busiest time of year with so much to fit in.

Pressure, heavy demands on your time and the need to juggle different commitments can take its toll on physical or mental wellbeing. If you think you may be affected, then the following tips for a more relaxed festive season may well be for you:

Tip 1: Make a plan!
Whether you are affected by extreme ‘busyness’ or not in the run up to Christmas, you could do worse than taking an hour out of your busy schedule to reassess your priorities, make a list, and plan all your business and social activities! Allocating times and days for the most important tasks will prevent last minute panic and that feeling of overwhelm that many women experience when they juggle work or their own business with lots of other commitments.

Tip 2: Delegate… say NO … and let go!
Once you know your priorities, identify what you can let go or at least put on hold for a few weeks! Alternatively, could you delegate more?
Have you ever considered what your time might be worth? It may not be realistic or cost effective for you to fit in all the extra tasks and expect that somehow there will be time for it all!
Try and practice saying say NO to people and tasks that add to your pressure. This may be the most difficult thing of all, but why not try and start with small things? It is much healthier than saying yes to something you don’t actually have time for. You give out mixed messages by saying YES, and you may end up feeling resentful and stressed, which may in turn stress the person who is relying on you to do the job and deliver on time.

Tip 3: Include some ME time in your plan!
The festive season may be a time for giving, but women tend to give their all to business, family and home before they consider giving some time to themselves. What would help you recharge your batteries, a beauty treatment or a massage? Or just the occasional relaxing evening, enjoying a luxurious bath, your favourite music, a glass of fine wine or a good book?
Whatever it may be, book some ME time in your diary, brief your
partner or children and try to say NO to the phone.

Since everything you do, takes up energy, this is your chance to ‘replenish’ and make sure you have a stress free Christmas season.

Ute Wieczorek-King is an experienced trainer, mentor, business coach and facilitator who specialises in business and career development, time management and personal effectiveness. As an expert in balancing lots of different commitments, she enjoys helping other busy women achieve more in less time, with less stress. She also supports women via Success Network, a not-for-profit business community which can be found at http://www.successnetwork.org.uk

Perfection doesn’t work in business

A few concepts are starting to dawn on me since I’ve stopped my business.

One of them is perfection – it isn’t always possible and it certainly isn’t necessary. Believe it or not, if you constantly strive for perfection you will never get anywhere, and you will waste so much time trying to attain it.

And even if you did manage to get there, who would notice? The majority of your clients or followers wouldn’t know perfection even if it hit them in the face! The only thing that does get noticed is when something is rubbish, of poor quality and not worth its value. Then the public start to complain, and all attention is drawn towards the mediocrity of the service or product.

Perfection is something that only comes to the fore when promoted with somebody with the right callibre to do so. Even so, it is still dependent on personal choice: what some people think is perfect may not be what others think, and if perfection relies on the masses to make an impression, then sometimes you have to give in and go with the flow.

Another side of perfection comes with practice, and when analysed you find that the majority of your perfection is attained in the first 80% of completing the task. The final 20% only achieves what you think is improvement, when probably it makes very little difference at all. By learning to let go, you will create material that certainly gains the right level suitable for your public without impairing your performance.

Nevertheless, this isn’t an excuse to not strive for perfection. After all, you will always want to do the best for your clients, and offer the best solution to their problems. But remember there isn’t enough hours in the day to create total perfection in your business, so offering something that is really close is the next best thing.

When Choosing a New Car is a Personal Branding Decision

My husband and I are currently choosing a new family car. It doesn’t have to be ‘new’ but almost new would be nice. When I chose my own car last year, I knew exactly what I wanted – a car that is easy to park, safe, sporty, fast, but frugal and environmentally friendly, but not necessarily in that order.

At a recent workshop about personal branding, we asked the delegates what car they think represents best who they are. They mentioned lots of practical, unusual or luxurious cars, and spoke with great passion about their choice!

My own personal brand is probably best expressed by a distinctive Audi TT sports car. It is different to other sports cars, but as it doesn’t tick the environmentally friendly box, I now drive a distinctive, unique and very different Audi A2, which is both fun to own and drive.

Choosing a new family car has led to some lengthy discussions and we still haven’t been able to make a decision. We would both like something that’s frugal and environmentally friendly, roomy and with style, zest and zing. We may be ‘middle aged’, but are not in the middle of a mid- life crisis, and really enjoy driving!

We are previous owners of an original Fiat 500, a unique Italian Mini Innocenti with lots of ‘Va Va Voom’, and various convertible sports cars. When the children came along we drove Golfs, a fun VW camper, a huge Chevrolet and more recently a trusted German estate with tons of space to transport the camping gear in the summer, as well as daughter No2’s belongings to and from university.

For some bizarre reason, my husband is currently being drawn to a purely practical brand (type withheld!) – a brand that never turns my head or makes me feel excited. It is neither ‘me’ nor ‘us’, regardless of what perks, boot sizes and performance figures I may have been told about!

I thought I might be unusual as a woman in that I feel so passionate about researching, buying and driving the right car! But then I read that women purchase nearly 50% of all new cars, and influence 80% of all car buying decisions! We are quite clearly very influential consumers, and feel passionate about making the right choice!

It seems that our cars, alongside other personal belongings like handbags or shoes, express the personality inside us, in one way or another and touch some emotion inside. Even BMW captured this perfectly in one of their recent ads, in which they said it is all about “how the car makes you feel”!

So if you were a car, what brand symbolises you the person? Are you a sporty convertible, a quirky beetle, a fun mini, a reliable golf, or a luxurious, quality saloon?

Ute Wieczorek-King is an experienced trainer, mentor, business coach and facilitator who specialises in business and career development, time management and personal effectiveness. As an expert in balancing lots of different commitments, she enjoys helping other busy women achieve more in less time- with less effort and stress. She also supports women via Success Network, a not-for-profit business community which can be found at http://www.successnetwork.org.uk

Get some business security first

There is nothing worse than doing a load of work and not getting paid for it.

Over a year ago I was approached by a man who wanted me to market some books he had published. This project sounded too good to be true (and in fact this was the case, as you will read later).

So I redesigned his website (with the minimum of information), set up a shopping cart and autoresponder, plus a blog and other social networking accounts. I tried so hard to promote his terrible books (learning that you need to have a good product that people actually want to be able to succeed), tried to get them redesigned so that they actually looked nice both inside and out, fielding his awful adverts in expensive magazines that were so bad they were a complete waste of money (not designed by me of course), and coping with a torrent of emails and telephone calls from this persistent and annoying person.

Of course he never paid the invoices I sent him, always coming up with excuse after excuse. I stupidly carried on working for another month, amassing more money owed, until I’d had enough. I downed tools and refused to work any more until I was paid. More excuses, and no payment. Then silence…

The next thing I had was an email from his cousin saying my client had died and since his business was illegal and he had no money, it was highly unlikely I would get my invoices paid. I actually rang up the crematorium the day of his funeral to see if he really had died and had not done a runner. I also heard that all the bailiffs for his other debts had totally stripped his flat, so there was certainly nothing left for me.

The moral? There are several. Draw up a contract at the beginning carefully laying out exactly what you are supposed to do. Calculate a price for the amount of work decided upon, and get at least 50% deposit in advance. No deposit, no work: it shows good will and commitment. Form a strategy for work to be done, including when contact is to be made (don’t tolerate constant interruptions) and confirmation of drafts before the final product is published or produced. And above all, make sure the project you undertake has a possibility of success – go with your gut feeling about quality, consistency and – above all – get a credit check done first to learn the liability of this new project.

And don’t put up with this trash for 3 months, only to land up with nothing at the end. You will only have yourself to blame…

“If you think training is expensive, try ignorance”. Peter Drucker

“If you think training is expensive, try ignorance”. Peter Drucker

This quote reminded me of my earlier days of training in HR (Human Resources). Peter Drucker was one of several management gurus we discussed and debated in our training as new HR graduates. There was a lot to learn, understand and apply back then and today my personal and professional development journey continues. I aim to continue my personal development and learning for as long as I can and I believe I will! I have learned that when it comes to people management, there is no one-size-fits all! At least, I’ve not yet come across the one size fits all training programme. Is it out there?

I have however come across some really good personal development programmes. I have attended several and learned much from the programme content and even more from the attendees who were there willing to share their experience, expertise and learning.

One particular cost effective personal development I would like to share with you should you wish to improve your communication and leadership skills is Toastmasters International.

I regularly attend a local club which provides training, development and learning. It provides great networking opportunities too. Toastmasters International is an organisation which has just celebrated its 85th birthday, that’s quite a track record. If you are interested in improving your public speaking skills, learning to run an effective meeting, providing quality feedback to employees and building confidence in personal development, stop by and meet members at your local club.

Training at Toastmasters is affordable; most clubs encourage a few free visits before you join. Training need not be expensive. As you learn and grow in your personal development, you can help others to do the same. If you think this sounds like a win/win, you are correct, it is. I invite you to check it out and consider adding it to your personal development plan!

Mary Fraser is an experienced HR professional with a passion for learning and development. She set up Fraser HR in 2002 to help small and medium sized organisations by providing an external HR support service. Each HR project undertaken is different and tailored specifically to meet the requirements of the organisation. Mary is a keen advocate of personal development and offers coaching and mentoring to individuals and organisations as part of their development strategy. In 2005 she co-founded Success Network for business women with colleague Ute Wieczorek-King. More about Fraser HR can be found at www.fraserhr.co.uk

How far would you go for your customers?

How easy are you making it for your customers to use your services? Do you go out of your way to help them?

I like the way Clark’s the shoe shops now offer a personal service to their customers: I saw a pair of purple (well, that is my colour) shoes that I liked, and asked for a size 5 and a half. The shop assistant arrived back from the stock cupboard to say they hadn’t any in that particular size.

Then she asked whether I would like to order them in. I could then try them on and decide whether I liked them. There was no obligation to buy them, and if they didn’t suit they would go back into the stock cupboard for the next customer.

Then she asked me for my mobile number so the shop could text me to say my shoes were ready to try on. I know this is a very simple procedure and extremely common-place, but I consider this to be extremely convenient, more so than finding a message on my answerphone.

It dawned on me as I walked out of the shop that I wasn’t leaving unfulfilled. Clark’s really wanted to sell me those shoes, and they were doing the utmost to relieve the inconvenience of not having any available at that time. I now look forward to my mobile phone beeping with the good news.

Anyway, back to the marketing issue: what are you doing within your business to provide similar excellent service for your customers?

Model Caprice Shares her Top Tips for Business Success

Yesterday was Women’s Enterprise Day, which focuses on celebrating the successes of female businesswomen and encouraging others to turn their passions into profit.

Caprice Bourret who has been a successful model since 1996 has always seen herself as a businesswoman but claims she was “diving in at the deep end” when she decided to launch her own lingerie company,

I would like to share her top tips with you here:

1.  I never went to college, but you have to learn to educate yourself. You need to know every aspect of your business.

2. Be persistant. You will be knocked back, as I have.

3. You have to get people that are qualified, because ultimately they will help you make money.

4. If quality isn’t there your customers will know and you will lose your business. I take a hit on my margins because I’m looking for longevity.

5. You have to learn about cashflow.

6. You always have to think five months down the line. I am a very conservative businesswoman in general.

7. It is still sort of a man’s world. You have to prove yourself. Especially coming from a modelling background I have found it hard to gain credibility.

To read the rest of the article “Caprice backs Women’s Enterprise Day”

please visit this link

Safe Online Banking

I came accross this initiative and wanted to share this with anyone who banks online.  Take a look at the website it’s really worth it.

Banking Industry initiative to help online banking users stay safe
. The Banking industry has launched ‘Bank Safe Online’ to raise awareness of the risks in online banking and steps that can be taken to minimise them.

For more information check out this website: http://www.banksafeonline.org.uk/index.html

It’s just a job – or is it?

Last week was a relatively busy week and I was ready to enjoy a quiet weekend.

There had been several business meetings and events during the week, some productive and others not. However I did meet some interesting people in the process – like the lady at a local business event for women planning on starting their own businesses. One lady is planning to start her new business in commercial bee keeping. I have to say that I found this fascinating – not sure why, I guess that I liked the ‘business with a difference’ idea. I do like ‘different’. I learned much about bees, their behaviour, their atuning with nature and of course the commercial side of the business too. I do enjoy connecting with people with different interests and I believe that this particular lady will make a success of her business because she held such passion, belief and experience about her intended business. I wish her well.

Then there was the lady photographer who visually ‘loved her job’ and that could be heard when she recounted details of her work, the challenges and changes she had to deal with in the early stages when she set up her business and how she hoped to see it develop in the future. Now here was a lady happy with the job she did and wondered why she hadn’t gone into photography sooner.

Work – ‘a means to an end’ or ‘an end to a means’?

I wonder if there is something about having to try out several jobs, places of work, positions of responsibility before we get to find the job or position that provides us with real job satisfaction, enjoyment, contentment and happiness … and a reasonable income too?

Mary Fraser is an experienced HR professional with a passion for learning and development. She set up Fraser HR in 2002 to help small and medium sized organisations by providing an external HR support service. Each HR project undertaken is different and tailored specifically to meet the requirements of the organisation. Mary is a keen advocate of personal development and offers coaching and mentoring to individuals and organisations as part of their development strategy. In 2005 she co-founded Success Network for business women with colleague Ute Wieczorek-King. More about Fraser HR can be found at www.fraserhr.co.uk

How to market for free

This is a good subject for start-ups and very small businesses who don’t have a large budget to work with..

The first free marketing method is networking. Go to as many meetings as possible, particularly the free events or those that don’t require a big entrance fee. But to make these successful you must arm yourself with a good pitch, both 10 and 60 second versions, the first to grab attention to yourself, and the second if you get a chance to address the whole room. If you can create something that is different, easily understandable, poignant and relevant to your listeners’ needs, then you have a head start above many others.

It is important to get yourself as visible as possible in the business world. There are two possibilities: blogging and social networking group pages. It is very easy to create a free blog, and social networking sites allow you to create groups or fanpages which you can devote to your business.  In these you must regularly post up information about your business, and then, as with the blog, use RSS feeds to inform your followers of your new posts, or email through the social networking system to your followers that you have recently contributed new material for them to read.

And then there’s Twitter, equally free, which is an excellent way to promote your business, not forgetting that you can feed your blog to it, and now your posts can be automatically replicated on your Facebook and LinkedIn profiles.

Writing articles and publishing them around the net is another way to spread your expertise. Make sure the resource boxes direct the reader back to your website, blog or social networking profile pages, so they can find out more about you.  Take advantage of keywords to improve your search engine optimisation, and careful attention to the headlines and first paragraph will increase the likelihood of a response.

If you do have a website, get as many links back to it as possible from other websites and web directories. The more high profile the link source, the more respect search engines give your website, not to mention providing more portals for the spiders to crawl over your site and report back pages for indexing.

Create a good signature for your emails, to publicise your website, blog and social networking profiles. Don’t forget that the space at the bottom of your communication is just waiting to be filled with promotional written material and links, and everybody you write to will get a chance to see them.

A pure shot of motivation

This week, when I attended a talk by the ‘top dogs’, who featured in the BBC program last spring, I was ready for an evening of entertainment. What I did not realize is just how fired up I would feel afterwards.

On stage were Ranulph Fiennes not only a famous polar explorer, but a man who completed 7 marathons in 7 days on 7 continents, months after a triple by-pass operation, and Robin Knox-Johnston the first man to sail single handed non-stop around the world.

That would be enough for anyone, but what really struck me was their unfailing determination to succeed, no matter how long or how grueling the journey. As a result the former became the first pensioner in reaching the top of Everest, the later the first pensioner to go sail alone around the world. Neither were defeated by set backs or discouraged by the length of time it took, the constant battle to secure funds, their age or any such like menial distractions.

If they can, so can I. At a time when business is challenging for most, if not all independents, when times are lean and doubt starts to creep in, I will remember what they achieved against all the odds, pick myself of the floor and keep going.

How Grouping Similar Tasks Leads to Higher Productivity

I had an IT crisis a few weeks ago when not just one thing went wrong! From broadband problems to my laptop crashing and lots of other things in-between, I was feeling challenged and had to approach my work in completely new ways so that my productivity wouldn’t go totally out of the window.

The one thing that helped me work smarter during this time was grouping (or batching) different tasks, and applying this technique consistently. Grouping or batching tasks makes so much sense as you end up being quicker, having fewer distractions and less temptation to multi-task!

For example, as I had lots of internet down time I was forced to plan my online and offline time separately. Carrying out my online tasks remotely once a day encouraged me to batch them and also to group offline tasks, to be carried out during the rest of the day.

So let’s assume your to-do list says you should do some invoicing, emailing and filing. Let’s think of invoicing as task 1, emailing as task 2, and filing as task 3.

If you were working on three different client projects (A, B & C), would you prefer to do emailing, filing and invoicing for project A first, then the same for project B and C?

If your preference is to work this way, imagine you are cooking a meal. Let’s say you cooked a starter and a main course that both included onions. Would you slice the onions for the starter first, then complete that dish and then slice the onions for the main course?
I always get out all the ingredients that are needed to prepare the whole meal. I then prepare all vegetables and fruit in one go, which is so much faster overall!

All it requires is a little more forethought by imagining the final meal, its courses and their relevant preparation times. You then put them in order – not necessarily as they are eaten, but as they are prepared, with the goal of minimising effort and preparation time.

The same applies to your work projects. When working on 3 different projects (A, B & C), don’t be tempted to do filing and invoicing for project A first, before tackling project B and C!

It is far more efficient to group all emailing tasks (1), all invoicing (2) and all filing tasks (3) as in ‘A1, B1, C1’ followed by ‘A2, B2, C2’ and so on….

When you approach all your work projects in this way, even downtime on the internet can have its advantages!

By Ute Wieczorek-King, copyright November 2009

Ute Wieczorek-King is an experienced trainer, mentor, business coach and facilitator who specialises in business and career development, time management and personal effectiveness. As an expert in balancing lots of different commitments, she enjoys helping other busy women achieve more in less time, with less stress. She also supports women via Success Network, a not-for-profit business community which can be found at http://www.successnetwork.org.uk