Business Coaching Articles Catch Up

Looking at this blog I can see it looks like I  have been quite remiss in updating the posts. Truth is I have been writing some for another blog in the UK to which I contribute so here is a quick way to catch up if you would like to read more business articles. 

I will get back to posting here but for now check out these articles which have been on topics that have been figuring large in the real space lately, for business clients. Feedback welcome as always. 

Articles are on business topics ranging from managing your business through online marketing and managing your stress through focus on the things you can change.

Top 4 Online Marketing Myths

There is a growing trend for small businesses to be turning up on Facebook and Twitter and making an effort towards building numbers of followers.  Social Media we are told is ‘where it is at’ and you need to be there. There is also a growing trend …Read more

Resolve Versus Wishful Thinking

How are those resolutions going that you set at the start of the year? Time to revisit your resolutions and see what worked and what didn't. Or make some fresh goals and reach them. Sometimes we set resolutions without any real resolve at all and …Read more

How To Grow Your Sales Channels 

Many a business that is in wholesale and maybe retail too, is plodding along doing a nice trade. Things are working pretty smoothly and money is coming in every month.  Some may be worrying about the economy or other issues that are not in their …  Read more 

Good Businesses Manage This First

Every day it seems we have the media intent on stirring up issues just to sell newspapers or a point of view. But as I watch articles posted on business websites showing the latest businesses to go bust it is clear that the articles showing the … Read more

9 Ways Your Website Can Help Visitors

“I don’t do any marketing because my business comes from word-of-mouth so I don’t really have anything on my website” This was the proposition put to me recently by a professional after confessing their website was really just their 'business card …Read more

Content Marketing For Local Business

Anyone searching online for marketing information will have seen that Content Marketing is the hot topic now. But what does it mean? Content Marketing is a term that covers creation of worthwhile information and ideas to share for the purpose of …Read more

Go From Faking It To Making It

Have you ever felt like an impostor? You’re off to work and you’re doing your thing you have done a thousand times but that little voice is whispering “someone’s going to find you out soon as the fake you are”. Psychologists, who rather like to … Read more

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Are You Lousy At Self Promotion Too?

'Banner Girl' promoting a bakery shop - note the loaf of bread hat!

I wish I had a buck for every time someone clever I meet has told me that they are not good at self promotion, I would be very happy.

Unwillingness toward self promotion is real and present threat to the success of any business venture. And I suspect, sometimes not the real issue.

For any business owner who is suffering from the symptoms of shyness when it comes to self promotion, perhaps it is worth stepping back a bit and taking another look at the picture.

Starting with this.

You are not your business. Your business is not you.

Or at least it shouldn't be.

While many small businesses operate as though they are the person. the reality is that no business can flourish when it is held back by the owner. Thinking that you and the business are one and the same is definitely holding back your business.

Nobody can do all things that need doing.  And certainly not do them well enough that they need to be done to as a standard from which your business needs to operate. That's not just the magic thing that you do but also the dreary stuff. The account keeping, the documentation, the quoting, the follow-up, the customer service, the marketing, the styling of the business premises or marketing materials, the design work, the content generation, the online channel development, the sales training, the delivery, the purchasing, the legal compliance, the HR management...Or any of the other things that need to be done for the business to operate effectively, and not just limp along as best it can with you the centre of the universe.

Work Out What Only You Can Do 
Some areas of the business can be done by anyone. Other aspects can only be done by you. When you spend your time doing the things that anyone can do, you are not available to do that most essential thing within the business that it needs - because you are off doing marginally useful things that could readily be done by someone else - and probably someone cheaper to employ and more capable in that role.

Work Out How To Best Do It 
Every role in a business needs to be documented and when all the other jobs are done, then remember to document what it is that only you can do - and commit to doing it.

Build A Team
Watch any of the old rock bands that are still around. What you see is that sharing the load and having access to more skills that complement what one in the band does, makes for a better product. There is indeed more than the sum of the parts and when all come together what they produce is greater than they could manage on their own. That's powerful. Use it.

A Great Manager
What else do good old Rockers have in their favour? They hire a good manager. For many a good manager made the difference between having any success at all, or being just another band that never made it.

The manager's job is to get the best deals, make the arrangements and take care of the backroom stuff that is their expertise and probably not yours. They find the opportunities to get the band seen and they arrange for those who matter to hear about you. They promote you like you never would yourself and you get to just front and do your thing that you do best.

And the manager can deal with those who think you will work for them as a freebie. Not you.

By expanding your view of what your business is, you empower yourself to focus on your strengths and gain additional brainpower and expertise to work out the puzzle to change what you have not been able to do alone, into a solution that will work and free you to focus on what you really should be doing.

Promoting your business.
Your problem that you thought was being bad at self promotion? Is really lack of a defined and marketable product. 

Or perhaps more importantly - putting the system into place that will allow customers who need what you do, to most easily find you, and buy.

Self promotion done well, is really something much richer. It is self advocacy. And if we won't be our own advocate for what we do - nobody else will. Letting the market know what you do and how that can help those needing that kind of assistance.

You'd want to promote that, for sure.



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Get Your Business Story Out To Customers.

Changes in the way Google works now mean that it is more important than ever that your website is well set-up to meet their standards to be seen by Google as a worthwhile site for people searching for what you do. Every business needs this as a priority so your business can be found online through search. 

What Google Values

• That means that it is comprehensive, that it is able to be viewed by mobile devices - Smartphones and tablets, as well as desktop computers.  
• That the content relates to the topic and it is valuable for the reader.  
• And that it is original.

It needs to be kept fresh - that is with new content added regularly.  Perhaps the easiest way to update information online for any business, is by using a blog to update and post articles and items of interest to your target customers.

Feeding Social Media

Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter can be great – but you still need something to post to them. Your blog can help you have content on hand to share on social as well as being content for your website.  And it supports other advertising that you might be doing, such as radio – because not everyone is online all day.  So a mix of your own information and curating (collecting and posting quality material of others that is a fit for your collection of information) other material on social media makes it easier to share articles, photos and things that are of interest to your customers.

Boost Offline Methods Too

Radio ads can be creating interest that the website and your online content can back up when the listener wants to know more… and moves from listening to seeking out your business.  NOTE: Make sure you also have product available to buy while they are on your website. Even a free product to download and checkout helps. A shopping facility will help push you to get creative with making buyable products!

So a blog can be useful but it needs to be done with some consideration as to what you might write about – how the writing is going to happen – who is going to write it is one issue – because not everyone is good at writing and many successful in business, may have trouble when it comes to sitting down in front of a computer and putting their thoughts down in a useful way. This can be improved or there other ways to accomplish this, but the information still has to be valid, and useful and written in the ‘tone’ of the business. It will communicate your values so it should be in line with your way of doing business.

Many businesses still don’t have a website, or they have a website that is poorly presented, lacks essential information, is not styled to be visually appealing and modern to meet expectations of customers and a great many are not compatible with mobile devices.  This is the first way to search for many people so cannot be stressed how critical it is to get this right.

But what to write about?

Your business has a story.  It’s important to work out what that compelling story is that your business has to tell customers about the things that interest them in your story.   We like a story but we love a story that has a benefit for us.   If you don’t make us aware of how we can be better off by knowing your story who will? Nobody.


Here's a great example of a new business bringing innovative approach to a pretty ordinary product. Meet Johnny Cupcakes and his fabulous T-shirts that have people lining up around the block. See Johnny Cupcake's story

Every business has a range of topics that are valuable for customers.  It may take some teasing out to come up with a good mix of categories for your business but spending the time to understand what customers care about at this stage will be rewarding in the long term.

Customers are well informed about prices and the usual information about products, but your expertise may mean that you have much more insight into the products that customers can’t find out any other way.

They also like to see who else they know knows you, and sharing your blog posts on social media means that your information can be shared far beyond the people who you know – and on to friends of friends.

Even customers and clients who know us for one field may not know the full extent of ways that we can help them.  A fresh and content rich website or blog can help educate and reveal new areas that they want to buy from us


ACTION

Start An Ideas Book For Your Business 

Think about events that happened through the day and just make some notes about funny events, things you learned, problems that customers have that you see over and over again, and add these notes every day.

You just need to write enough so that you remember the point that you would share about these and these notes can act as a prompt for you when it comes to posting a new blog.

When it comes time to start blogging you will have good data to use, that comes from your own experience with customers that will help to inform the articles that you can write for your blog and publish online.





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Are you lousy at self promotion too? 



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What Do You Stand For?

Some years ago we had a news scandal about an unsavoury incident involving a football team on a tour to NZ  some years before which raised the topic of what is acceptable behaviour in sport, but more widely in the community. The reports have been revealed what is coyly described as ‘consensual sexual encounter’. Well so far as it was stated originally, the consent extended to the single man named and now paying some price for his now very  public infidelity, and his involvement in what turned out to be something other than a simple one night stand.

Specifically, it turned into something other than this, when eleven team mates and various hangers-on decided to get in on the act.

So far, the former player (the one with the consent  – from the 19 year old woman, if not his wife...) has taken the hit for the team. Well that’s the point is it not? Team bonding and all that means that the team is the thing and you don’t ‘rat’ on your mates. Where that fits insofar as the mates letting a team member take responsibility for their involvement to alone face the consequences, is however understandable it may be, cowardice. Were it the case that this man had in mind that the other members would enter the room then that would seriously compound his error and compromise his integrity even further. If he did not invite them in then it becomes even more shameful that they leave him alone to bear responsibility for their actions.

This specific case aside, it does beg the question ...What has happened to the standards that were once an easy measure for individuals to gauge their behaviour and actions? Where are the role models that will teach boys to be men of integrity? How does it come to pass that in this age of supposed enlightenment that women are still treated in this manner and more to the point, believe at some level that there is any reason to submit to such bullying? Consent? Really? Just supposing it were true the young woman did have poor judgement in this case, still yet that does not alter the fact that each and every man in that room had his own decision to make, and it would seem, each had little respect – or reason to have respect - for themselves, or anyone else in the team. Without question it is safe to assume that none of the men in that room would have been happy for their mother or sister to be treated the way that they treated that woman. So what possibly constituted the difference in their mind between she – and the women they would protect from such treatment in the normal course of events?

Beyond this sorry incident, is the broader question of what value we place on standing up and doing the right thing for the right reason. How different might this story have been had someone brought some positive leadership to the group.

In discussing this with a client this week, he related a story about travelling on an inter-city commuter train, packed with people just doing their best to endure the journey with as little friction as is possible in a train packed with commuters. A young man decided to inflict his loud opinions and blaring music on the rest of the passengers. One man requested that he be considerate and turn the music down. The youth returned the request with a hostile gesture. Minutes later the youth has moved down the aisle to where my client sat. He took this opportunity to upbraid him and let him know in no uncertain terms, that the passengers and he needed to be considerate one of the other and that his cooperation would make it a much better trip for all concerned. He motioned to the man who had asked for the music to be turned down, what he’d like to do with the music now. The man remained silent. Nobody on the train said a single thing to support him. Apparently then, all the passengers were consenting to being bullied.

In Australia we have had the notion of a fair go, and an expectation of reasonable behaviour as we live-and-let-live. Has that been a fantasy of the imagination? Has this really been worth nothing... or have we just turned our back on this concept as being worthy of keeping in our present age?

Does it really, not matter at all, how we behave to one another?

I for one, hope not.

As our society moves away from the two parent home, we see more and more children raised in homes without a male parent. The examples that the parents set, in what the children absorb about how relationships work, how people treat each other would seem to be changed now, compared to the past. Many things that would have been frowned upon, are now found to be commonplace. The old rules are thrown out, but what are the new rules?

We’re learning something now of what the former football team regards as reasonable behaviour. It isn’t pretty.

In America, many are fond of a question WWJD – What would Jesus Do.

My question to you, is What Would You Do?

What are the things for which you are prepared to stand up? Even when they are difficult.

Especially when they are difficult.

A quote to which I subscribe says:

“What I am is the result of all the choices I have made or allowed others to make for me. What I choose is what I am”

Choose well.

What do you think?

Lindy Asimus
Business Coach & Social Media Development
Design Business Engineering
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Passion Alone Is Not Enough

"Follow your passion"  "Make your passion your business"

Is common to see this suggested as a good thing to do.
But is it really good advice?

Some people like baking muffins so they think opening a restaurant might be a good move.
In reality, it could just be a good way to start to not like making muffins.

A better indicator for opening a restaurant might be if you can say –

• I love serving people and
• I’m good at finding ways to produce good quality food customers love
• and that makes me good profit.
• And - I am passionate about following budgets and know how to plan meals without waste.
• And - I like working long hours, 7 days a week and
• I don’t mind not making a lot of money.

If  you want your passion for muffins to be your business then you might test that out by working out...

• How many muffins you need to make to cover the rent and the expenses and your wages and start making profit. And you know  
• How  you can sell that number of muffins to make enough money to pay those expenses and make you lots of profit.  
• And that you are content to make muffins, market muffins, sell muffins and live and breathe muffins and little else.

Even the things we like to do, can get old when we have to do them every day all day.

Sometimes if you like making muffins, it is a good idea to just make muffins when you feel like it.

Jim Collins, in his business book Good to Great suggests what he called his:

Hedgehog Principle

The question that we need to ask when we are considering turning our passion into a business, are our Hedgehog questions. There are three.

What are you passionate about?
What can you be the best at?
What can actually make you a living?

And the answer must meet all three criteria.

This exercise can also be used by young people trying to sort their way in life, their personal hedgehog, as much as a business trying to figure out what purpose they serve.

So if the answer to all  3 questions is Yes – following your Passion might be  a good idea.

If:

1. ·        You’re passionate about it
2. ·        You can be the best in the world at it
3. ·        You can make money doing it.  – And you know how.

Remember - And the answer must meet all three criteria. When you refine your thinking in this way – that clarity helps you to focus.

But be clear that this is the beginning  and in business your time will be spent on many things that  need to be done that don’t involve that element about which you are passionate. 

It’s said that:

“Successful people do those things that unsuccessful people are unwilling to do.”

Some people are unwilling to be uncomfortable. Learn to be uncomfortable and see it as a sign of potential personal growth.  That's a marker as a Good Thing.

A lot of things that the business needs doing, is stuff that we really won’t want to do. But must.


But what if I have a business that is not my passion?

Here’s what nobody tells you.

You can become passionate about anything.  

Your attitude will dictate how well that passion lasts.

Passion is the start point. Alone it won’t do anything.
Passion needs to be supported with good habits that get you the results that you need.

If you have a business that is not your passion you may still have good habits that let you make it successful.

Now … time to get passionate about it.

And it is not just the thing the business does – get passionate about how well you do what you do and how well you serve your customers and how valuable your business is – or will be – to the clients you serve.  Notice that you can do the same thing to enhance passion in all your relationships. 

If you are not already valuable to them – then that’s a sign that there are improvements to be made to bring your value up higher for them – and make your business one that you can truly be proud to own and to represent and to promote.

More important perhaps is to consider how well your habits are helping you to achieve the outcomes you want.

It's not discipline you need. 

We sometimes think we have a discipline problem. When in truth we have no problem with discipline. We can do habits that are not supporting our interests, easily and on cue every time! We just have the wrong habits for the results we want.  When you swap those for habits that go with the results you want – then you really have something.


Check your passion levels.

Are you feeling passionate about what you do?

If not –

• What element of what you do can you ramp up feeling good about? 
• Where can you push yourself to be the best at what you do now?
• How much more of yourself can you bring to whatever it is that you do?

When we bring more attention to what we do – we change the way that we feel about it. We can focus on feeling proud of getting even better at what we do, and we can learn to love the strangest things, just because we can do it well and it has value for someone.  That’s a good start on passion.

If you are not passionate about what you are doing – you have two choices. You can do something you are passionate about – but that might not work.

Or you can get passionate about what it is that you are doing successfully now. 


And you can make those muffins in your time off... any time it pleases you.


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Make Your Retail Store Irresistible To Customers

We see a lot of concern and grumbling from retail store owners and other business operators complaining about business being slow and yet in many countries we also see those same business owners doing little in the way of enticing customers to come into their store and attract their attention with charming and alluring displays to pique their interest.

Here are some I love.  They are creative, they are fun and they hold promise to the customer of abundance and satisfaction for the person who walks into their space. Here are some that just call you in to see more...

Restaurant - Paris, France

Here is a restaurant that just screams that they use traditional methods of cooking and fresh ingredients. No frozen stuff whacked in the microwave here! 

High end handbag store in Rome, Italy

This life size child's antique horse is just a splendid thing to see and speaks to a time long gone, of hand made quality and artisan products that will last forever and be worth any amount of money you spend on it.

Locksmith

Ancient village shopping precinct - France

No acres of glass here. No turnstiles and no automatic doors. That sign though, says "we're here for you and this is what we do." Nothing more, nothing less. No "SALE! SALE! SALE!" signs here.

Florist beckons with a charming floral entrance 

Like a walk in a garden this florist shop even smells of freshness and beauty you can take home to make your house come alive.

Menswear Store - Rome Italy

This clothing store leaves no doubt that the winter stock is in and they have wonderful products to keep you toasty warm in the chilly months.

Supermarket peach from Sorrento, Italy

This peach, the size of a cricket ball was selected from a box of the ugliest, misshapen and odd assortment of sizes imaginable. It was delicious! A real peach. Not the perfectly standard size and shape peaches that I see in every Australian supermarket - that are hard as rock when you buy them and bruised beyond use when they ripen, and even then are flavour-less.

This peach ... I would go back to the store every day to buy more just like it. The others with no flavour but perfect in form? No thanks. See how our expectations drive our purchases. If my experience leads me to expect disappointment, I stop buying.

Produce store Sorrento Italy

Some shopkeepers don't even wait for you to come into the store - they bring the store out to you. Local produce, fresh, not kept in cold storage, turned over from the farm every day.

Shoppers want to visit stores that are interesting. That look welcoming and that provide the items to purchase that they expect to be able to get from such a store, and to have interesting things to find that are unexpected.  They want to pay a fair price for it - not more than the shop next door and they want to feel like their patronage is appreciated.

The same applies to online shopping. That old website that you had made in 2001 with the shadow text and the animated buttons? No that just won't do. Your website needs to work for customers to use the way they shop in 2013. That means that it renders easily and cleanly on smartphones and tablets as well as computers.

Action:

Look around at other businesses - not just in the same industry as yours. Which shops do you find appealing and draw you in... and what are they doing that is causing you to want to go in there? Identify that.


Take an objective look at your business as it looks through the eyes of a customer.

Get feedback on how your store is presenting.

Is it enticing to customers?
Is the footpath dirty and littered?
Are the windows clean and well laid out?
Is there anything interesting to see and pull people into the shop to look more closely?

And remember to do the same for your online website, your blog and your social media platforms.


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Pursuit Of The Idea

Can you sit down and actually bring those ideas into production? That's the skill to build.




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The Dirty Secrets Business Needs To Know About Social Media

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Are you lousy at self promotion too? 



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Like to discuss your business? Lindy Asimus Design Business Engineering Get Help For Your Business Download your free 24 Page Action Plan Marketing Workbook! Subscribe to Actionbites Blog