7 Tips to Be Happy at Work – Shake off The Back to Work Blues

Monday morning tips to be happy at work …

1. Greet your colleagues with tales of the positive things you did over the break.
2.  Organise your work and prioritise the list to include tips to be happy at work .
3.  Choose something you love to do which has a ‘quick win’ – now get stuck into it!
4. Work through your list starting with the high priority work and DO NOT skip anything.
5. Priorities all the interruptions so they do not impact too negatively on your planned workflow and your tips to be happy at work .
6. Evaluate your achievements at the end of the day and feel the motivation factor.
7. Make your plans for another great day tomorrow with lots of tips to be happy at work !

(Resources: http://workingmomsagainstguilt.com/back-to-the-office-for-me/)

7 Business Development Tips for Spring Cleaning Your Business

I don’t know what came over me the other weekend but I has the urge to sort out my office at home. This is definitely a business development activity that is rare for me! Spring was obviously in the air as I caught the decluttering bug. It didn't end there either. You know how motivating it feels to have good clear out? Well my motivation was so high that I went on to clear my box room, dining room, wardrobe and utility room all in one weekend!

This got me thinking about the importance of having a good spring clean in the business at this time of year. This is a great time to do a major review; clear the old things out and make room for new ideas and strategies. So here are some of the areas I am concentrating on in my Business Development Spring Clean…..

1.  Updating my Marketing and Social Media Strategy - creating a weekly analytics analysis and quarterly review updates for the year ahead as part of my business development.

2.  Tidying up my filing both in the office, on my computer and on the cloud - it is surprising how much this can trigger new thoughts and ideas.

3.  Evaluating the effect of projects on the bottom line - making decisions to change or close those that are not effective and listing new ones to be explored in the future.

4.   Evaluating the financials as part of your business development – making sure your weekly and monthly financial management was effective over the past year and highlighting actions for future improvements.

5.  Evaluating the sales activities – ensuring that the annual sales goals have been achieved and creating action points for further improvements and monthly reviews over the coming year.

6. Analysing the team skills and effectiveness – creating clear personal development plans for myself and the team, identifying any skills gaps and making decisions about how to fill them.

7. Undertaking a ‘What If’ Scenario Planning Session - this is where you look ahead, identify potential problems, market and political changes and create plans to overcome them as part of your ongoing business development. (Look out for a future blog when I will outline this in more detail}

Have a great time Spring Cleaning Your Business and let me know how it helped to raise your motivation levels.

4 WAYS TO STRETCH YOUR BUSINESS FOR SUCCESS

Staying in your personal comfort zone is the easiest thing to do but it won’t get you to where you want to be in business! Running your own business is about stretching yourself out of your comfort zone, taking personal risks and developing yourself.

This point was brought home to me recently at a networking event I attended. One of the other business owners was a young man who has run his own IT business for several years in Lancashire (near where I was born!). Due to circumstances he moved his family and business to South West England about 18 months ago.

This was the start of him stretching the boundaries of his comfort zone. Up north he had developed a successful business organically from the people he knew. He had not advertised or networked to gain clients. As for cold calling on potential customers that was way outside his comfort zone that he never gave it a go. Word of mouth had been his business development pathway. How excellent is that?

The new move meant that whilst he kept some clients in the north of England, working for them remotely, he still had to develop contacts and business round his new location. So he had no option but to stretch himself out of his comfort zone. He was lucky however, to meet a great mentor who has challenged his procrastination. We all need people like this who know how easy it is to put off the things we hate or fear doing. So what were the fears he has overcome and what can you learn from his actions?

1. Moving his business and starting up in a different area.

Nothing is ever impossible if you are willing to take a risk and have a well thought out plan of action.

2. Getting out and meeting potential customers through networking.

Businesses are grown through relationship development, be it face to face or via social media. To succeed you have to first put yourself in the right arena and ‘fish in a pond’ where potential clients want your services.

3. Cold calling on customers and following up

This is the one thing that successful business people do well but for most people it means a huge stretch outside their comfort zone. Be it face to face or via the phone the fear of rejection is a major barrier to business growth and success. Don’t fall at the last fence though by not doing the follow up calls or visits – this is where the prospects become customers.

4. Maximising his message delivery by giving talks and presentations

Fear of all fears, for many, this is one of the biggest ‘stretches’ anyone can do. It is only practice that will build your confidence and don’t forget to find a way of capturing the contact details of all those who found your message of interest.

What an inspiration he is! I have no doubts at all that his business will continue to go from strength to strength.

 

Resources: http://bit.ly/1bQpSZl

Reduce Your Fear & Find Success

I was contacted the other day by a new client who is starting a business after 18 years employed by one company. The problem is that she is scared. In fact she would not be normal if she was not!

Setting up your own business is a scary life change and a healthy level of fear is good. The problem is the fine line between fear that focusses your mind into action and the level that paralyses you and stops you moving forward.

So how do you tell one from the other?

• You give yourself (and others) excuses for not getting started e.g. I am too old to start a business. (Colonel Saunders (Kentucky Fried Chicken) was 66 years old when he started his business!).
  
• Your mind is completely full of all the problems, things you don't know and negative thoughts that it is impossible to even think of an action let alone start to take them.
  
• You listen to friends and family who tell you not to be so stupid or 'get above your station in life'.
  
• You focus so much on the enormity of setting up a business that you can't even see the small steps to take to begin with.
  
• Your thoughts revolve round your fear of failure.

Time to let go of all this fear and negativity! 

Focus on the positive

Start with baby steps

Remember you cannot fail, only learn

Find yourself a mentor or some support

Start to visualise your new identity as a business person

Believe that you have the potential to be successful business person

Fill your mind with positive thoughts

Surround yourself with positive supportive people

Believe you are never too old to try new life experiences

NOW GO OUT THERE, 

STRETCH YOURSELF AND DISCOVER YOUR FULL POTENTIAL

10 Tips to Reduce Your New Year Resolution Slippage

Got your New Year Resolutions sorted? 

Fired up and ready to get going?

Got your New Year's actions and goals planned?

The question now is how long will it last? Come on let's be honest with ourselves. We are only human and no matter how good our intentions are, many of them (if not all) will inevitably slip.

So how do we reduce or better still prevent slippage?

1.  Make your resolutions achievable - small goals can be easier to achieve.
You know what they say, a chocolate elephant is more easily eaten in small bites!

2.  Write them down and review your progress weekly.
I write mine down every Christmas and tick them off as I achieve them - a great motivator.

3.  Share your resolutions with others who will support and encourage you.
This is a must for those resolutions that are hard to achieve.

4.  Create realistic deadlines and review dates.
Review your progress, update your actions and deadlines and you're more likely to stay on track.

5.  If it is a repetitive resolution that you always brake then either ditch it or change it.
Your success is linked to how much you really want to change so think carefully.

6.  Work out how you sabotage your resolution success.
We sabotage our success from a subconscious level for reasons such as:
                 * People we love and care for may not like the change
                 * We have a deep belief that we are not good enough or strong enough
                 * We don't really believe we can achieve it
                 * We are doing it to please others and not ourself

7.  Link them to something that gives you passion or strongly motivates you.
Keep your motivation high by focussing on how success makes you feel

8.  Make sure the pain of the need for change is greater than the pain of the change.
Be that physical or emotional pain this is important to success

9.  Work at fully identifying yourself with the outcome of your goal.
Success depends on you fully identifying yourself with the changes your resolution will create

10. When you are tempted to break your resolution focus on the pain.
By remembering the pain you will feel if you break your resolution it is easier to stick to it


Good luck and let me know how and when you achieve your resolutions.

Complements - True or False?

Most people love compliments, so I am not alone in this. They make us feel good when given by people we know, like and trust. They form an important part of communication and relationship development. The fact is, we instinctively judge a compliment as true or false depending on who has communicated it. So why, I wonder, has it become the accepted thing (by some people) to give complete strangers a complement?

Not sure what I mean or where my thought processes are going? Then hold on a minute and ask yourself this question……

“Would you go up to a complete stranger in the street and compliment him/her on their work or job?” Of course not because you know nothing about them. However, social media has changed all that, as we share, with the world, so much of who we are, what we do and what skills we have. That said, how we communicate has changed and continues to change rapidly. One thing that has not changed, however, is the effect of communication on relationship development.

Social media is an amazing tool for building relationships, yet all too often people focus on quantity of connections rather than quality of relationships. If you use Linked In you may understand what I am getting at.

I hate false compliments. Too often these days’ people I have never met, worked with or engaged in any conversation with are complimenting/endorsing me for my work skills on my Linked In page. Is this happening to you also? Immediately you know they are after one thing, a reciprocal endorsement to help with their ranking!

Don’t get me wrong I love the endorsements when they come from my clients and people I know. These are the true compliments that can often make my day. So thanks to all the lovely people I know on Linked In who have endorsed the skills they have seen me use. As for the false complements/endorsements, there is only one action to take – instant removal as one of my connections!

Let’s start a revolution of ‘instant removals’ and educate people how to use Linked In to build true relationships not false ones.

Social Media Best Practice for Business

There is a common misconception in many businesses that anyone who uses social media, personally, can run or manage a business social media campaign. This can prove a costly mistake as happened with one cleaning company who predominantly used Twitter to market their new business. When the service was not up to customer expectations, where did they go to complain? Twitter – with devastating effect as the company had no idea how to positively respond and turn an angry customer into a valued one.

Likewise, many businesses are wasting valuable time, energy and money using social media only to pump out their marketing messages. Often with no strategy, thought of content or how to engage and grow the customer base they blunder on regardless. Many are oblivious to the need for regular analysis of the effectiveness of their use of this marketing and communication medium.

Social Media Is So Much More Than Just a Marketing Tool

The purpose of Social Media within a business context differs from personal use of the platforms. To be effective in business terms it should be an integral part of a blended marketing strategy. It is a communications medium that affords instant access to clients and critics alike and therefore should also be integrated into your communications and customer service policies.  Getting your response wrong to negative customer feedback can do immeasurable damage to any brand. Get it right and you build an even stronger following and customer base.

Engage Someone with Business Social Media Skills To Manage The Team Strategy

Social Media platforms are not a medium through which to only push out your own marketing messages. Imagine you are in the middle of a very large networking event. What would you think if someone only communicated information about themselves and their business, never listening or responding to what you had to say? Would you want to engage in communication with them again? Social Media platforms are there to engage with people, not constantly communicate ‘Look at me’ messages!

CHOOSING THE RIGHT SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS FOR YOUR BUSINESS

It is important to choose your Social Media Platforms carefully, taking into consideration the market you are aiming at, their personal use of social media, your time to consistently use the platforms and how you will build a following. This is not a communications medium to only push out sales and marketing messages. It is a medium through which to share information and build relationships locally and globally.

Consideration as to how many platforms you choose to use is also important to its use and consistency. Effective Social Media campaigns are time consuming, requiring well thought out and planned content and implementation strategies and overall management, to be fully effective. Social Media management also includes regular weekly use of the analytical tools for each platform. Without such evaluation much time and energy can be wasted on ineffectual social media content and communication.

It is not about the quantity of followers but the quality of engagement you create

Where each member of a team is involved in producing content, sharing, interacting and following, and a dashboard such as Hootsuite is used (including its analytics) the ability to be consistent, time effective and engaging is increased. If people in the same team have their own twitter accounts with different types of followers e.g. students, business people, staff etc., where a need to communicate the same message arises, e.g. an event, the reach of communication is exponentially multiplied by the number of followers in different people’s accounts. This way of working also reduces the amount of time and engagement on Twitter needed by each individual.

Resources: http://www.techiemania.com/how-to-use-social-media-to-drive-your-business.html