Simply Business Coaching

About that extra hour

How exciting!  We got an ‘extra’ hour on Sunday morning as the clocks went back this weekend.  There was much tweeted about being able to sleep in longer - suggesting we may be short-changing ourselves in our rest & relaxation time.

I’d had a particularly full-on week so was also looking forward to a lie-in on Sunday.  In the event I went to bed early on Saturday evening, half-watched some television (yes I know it isn’t the done thing to have a TV in the bedroom, but that’s the only place I watch television) and had fallen asleep by 10pm. 

As a result I was wide awake by 5am on Sunday morning (having changed my bedside clock the night before).  What to do?  Should I get up or try to doze off again?  The sensation of having that choice, not feeling rushed or needing to spring into action was absolute bliss....

When I did get up (about 30 minutes later), I decided to do some batch-cooking so I’d have a meal for that day & be able to put the extra in the freezer.  All finished (well, in the oven) by 8.15am! 

Next, I had a leisurely breakfast and caught up with some online reading.  This was followed by a bit of end of month admin, a few relaxed tweets & Facebook updates.

Even the washing up generated by my earlier cooking spree didn’t dampen my mood too much, although by now I’d definitely more than used up that extra hour.

As I write this at approaching 2pm, I’m feeling a complete lack of stress or urgency.  (If you work for yourself you’ll know that, even on a Sunday that can be an unusual state of affairs.)  I still have most of the afternoon and a relaxing evening stretching ahead of me.  I really have got full value from those 60 minutes this year!

For me, having that extra hour was about having a choice of what to do with those precious minutes.  I was also very conscious of having that additional time and of making every minute of it count.  Perhaps I need to become more aware of how I use the ‘normal’ hours too?  I wonder how they might be different if I did?  Wouldn’t it be lovely to have an ‘extra’ hour every week?

So, how about if you were to allocate one hour each week to be totally aware of how each minute of that hour was spent - what would you do with your hour?

Reasons to be Cheerful

Nearly every morning for over 2 years, I’ve begun my day with a cheery ‘Good morning’ tweet.  It usually continues: “Looking forward to (whatever I’m doing that day), how about you?” and finishes by wishing everyone a ‘marvellous Monday, terrific Tuesday’ and so on. What started as a light-hearted ice-breaker, because I wasn’t sure what to tweet, has become a tongue-in-cheek habit.  I love it when people tweet back with what they have planned and wish me a great day too. 

The majority of those who tweeted back to me said thanks for being so cheerful adding that they looked forward to my daily greetings.  So I carried on with them, even though some mornings it can be hard to keep on coming up with something that I’m looking forward to!

A few weeks ago something happened that stopped me in my tracks.  Someone told me they found my constant cheery good mornings annoying and false, and didn’t I realise that not everyone appreciated reading such ‘Pollyanna’ tweets every day?

Ouch!  That hurt, I mean it really hurt me.  There I was thinking I was adding a little cheerfulness to peoples’ mornings .... had I got it totally wrong? 

The following morning I just sat at my computer, fingers hovering over the keyboard and, for the first time since I can remember, didn’t know what to type.  Should I tone things down or stick with what I always do?

The longer I hesitated, the worse it got.  After what seemed like hours (but in reality was probably about 5 minutes) I couldn’t think of anything remotely cheerful to tweet.  So I went with something really bland, pressed enter and then didn’t bother check for replies.

And you know what?  I was in a really down mood for the rest of that day.  And the next day, and the day after that as well.  It was as if my cheerfulness had been stolen because I no longer felt able to greet the mornings as I had in the past.  As you can imagine, this was not a good state to be in. 

It took a few days before I came to realise that my purposely cheerful morning tweets had forced me to come up with something to look forward to each day so I could tweet about it.  Without that discipline, any worries, hassles and disappointments seemed to push themselves to the front of my thoughts, blighting my day and darkening my mood.

The very next day I thumbed my nose at the killjoys out there and returned to my cheerful morning tweets.  I felt so much better for it - straight away - for the rest of the day, and the next day, and the day after that. 

My morning greetings are for me - and anyone else who cares to be light-hearted - even if it’s a bit of a struggle some days.

As for those people who find my daily ‘Pollyanna’ greetings annoying - there’s always the Unfollow button ;)

What do you say?

A Change of Direction ... or a change of heart?

I didn’t post here for a while over the summer.  At the risk of sounding melodramatic, I wasn’t sure if I had anything left to write that was worth reading.  So I kept quiet while I sorted out what to do next.  I hope my story will reassure you that you’re not alone - if you’ve ever been confused about the direction of your small business.  This is a much longer and more personal post than usual.

5 years ago I thought my business had finally grown up.  After being a sole-trader for the previous 5 years, I took the plunge and formed FrontLine Results Limited.  My reason for incorporating was simple - I wanted to target larger companies with sales teams and customer service departments to offer training and coaching;  I figured being the director of a limited company would help me to be taken seriously by them.  For a while it almost worked.  I changed the name of my email newsletter to something that sounded more ‘big business’, and started pumping out articles and information aimed at my new target market.  

.... And steadily grew more miserable as I realised my heart wasn’t in the business I was trying to build.  I didn’t really want to be a sales team or customer service trainer working with larger companies, goodness knew I’d been delighted enough to leave the corporate cubicle life behind in 1998.

I remembered that when I’d started my first blog (in May 2007 on Blogger) the posts were written for the people I love meeting and working with - the small business owner - mainly other sole traders and solo workers.  So my grandiose visions of becoming a trainer working with bigger companies were put firmly behind me - and it felt really good to be back coaching and teaching where my true passion lay :)

New Direction - Different Problems

In 2008 I made the move from Blogger to Typepad (it would have been WordPress except I couldn’t get my head around the technical bits!), all the while writing short little posts on topics I hoped were interesting and helpful for small business owners. 

At around the same time, the social media explosion sucked me in and ate away great chunks of time while I familiarised myself with Twitter and Facebook etc.  The sheer scale of possibilities made me an evangelist as I tried to convert all the local business networkers I came into contact with, but it was too early for them to take social media seriously.

When I delivered talks and workshops, I misjudged how much delegates would be prepared to do for themselves, and saw a lot of confused head scratching and glazed expressions.  The first lesson I learned was that it’s easy to forget you’re speaking in what still seems a foreign language to others; and the second was not to try to teach everything you know in one afternoon ;)

Sorting out the small print

Well, it’s definitely time to say goodbye to FrontLine Results - especially the limited company part.  Simply Business Coaching is the new name and it more closely represents the no-fluff, common-sense way I prefer to pass on what I’ve learned to my clients and students so they can easily understand and confidently apply it to their businesses.

Do the changes to my business come under the umbrella of ‘re-branding’ or are they part of a natural evolution?  Honestly, I don’t think it matters what label you stick on it.  What’s important (to me at least) is that I’m connecting with an inner purpose and direction that will probably mean even more changes in approach and attitude in the near future.  I’m just not sure what they will look like yet ....

Thank you for reading this far.  I hope this (rather long) post goes some way to explain why FrontLine Results Ltd is now Simply Business Coaching and why I’ve been rather thoughtful lately.

Has your business changed direction since you started it? How did you adapt?  I’d be honoured if you’d share your experience.

I don't think I want to be a millionaire

I think I’ve overdosed on reading success stories - you know the before and after stories you find on so many websites.  Some may well be genuine, some are definitely exaggerated, and far too many are pure works of fiction ;)

I don’t want to know that you lost everything and had to sleep in your car under a railway bridge until you had that life-changing moment and became an overnight millionaire (puhleese, save it for the movie they make of your life).

Not everyone has an exciting story to tell - but it seems we must somehow find one to tell.

But what about the vast, quiet majority of people who take time to learn and set to work, then they learn some more and work a lot more - and slowly, at their own pace, build a profitable business they’re proud of? 

So the time has come to say a sad farewell to some of my favourite teachers online.  Not because they don’t have more to offer, but because they seem to have moved beyond my understanding.  They have become millionaires.

The more successful these gurus and teachers become, the further away they move from their followers’ reality; they mix in different circles.  But that’s OK, it’s a natural progression.  Yet, have you noticed how they continue to market to their original list?

(I have to admit that at the back of my mind is the niggling little question - “If you’ve made all these millions, why do you still want my money?”  I’ve already contributed enough to your fortune, go pick on someone else!)

Don’t get me wrong, I bought training materials from these people because I wanted to learn how to do what these teachers had already figured out.  And for the most part I’ve been more than satisfied with the quality and quantity of information provided.  Only a couple of products have failed to live up to expectations which isn’t a bad average over the years!

So the messages I read make me feel that unless I want to be a millionaire, I’m not serious about being in business.  But I am very serious, I just don’t want to jump on the bandwagons of hype, celebrity and bling.  They aren’t ‘me’ somehow. 

What do you think?  Am I not aiming high enough? Let me know in the comments below :)

Imposter Bloggers!

This is a post I've been meaning to write for a while but have put off until I could find the right words to describe a somewhat delicate subject ..... and one which really winds me up, so this is a bit of a rant!

I subscribe to the RSS feeds of over 100 blogs which are written by a mix of people, some I admire, competitors I want to keep an eye on, as well as client blogs to keep up to date with what's happening in their world between calls.  But by far the largest number of blogs I read are so as to learn about the latest events and teachings in the social media world.

While I love to share great information from these bloggers with my 'followers' on Twitter, Facebook and Buzz, I work hard to write fresh posts each week for this blog (and for my joint blog over at Savvy Marketers).

So it niggles me when I click on a link in someone's tweet to be taken to an article written by someone else entirely.  I've been directed to other people's blogs and even ended up on article directory sites.  The most misleading experience to date was when I clicked through to the person's blog, start reading their post, clicked again to read the rest of the article and was taken to the true source and only then found out the actual author's name.

It's reached a point where I ignore links in some people tweets and have gone so far as to stop following others because I can't get to know who they really are.  I've also unsubscribed to certain blogs because I don't think they publish anything original.

Now, I know the internet is all about sharing and obviously share other people's material myself - but I always try to take care and clearly attribute the original author, so there can be no misunderstanding.

It is difficult to keep coming up with new articles - but I'd think more of these 'imposter bloggers' if they simply stated the real author's name at the beginning of the post, or added that they were 'Reading' in their tweets.

What do you think about this practice?  Does it niggle you too or am I being picky and over-sensitive?  (Please RT or Share if you enjoyed reading this post.)

I don't cry very often but ....

The last 24 hours have been technological hell!  First my internet connection started playing up - with the result I could ONLY access Google & all its applications (docs, calendar, email etc) and (this is even more weird) UK hosted websites - nothing else.

I spent hours trying everything I could think of - then, remembering my ISP had been taken over by someone else on June 1st, tried emailing them (that still worked but they didn't reply) and phoning (line cut off after a recorded message).  Total despair!

So I packed up my laptop and went to work at a friend's house, using her internet connection.  It all looked quite promising for a couple of hours.

Then my new BlackBerry decided it couldn't find a network and refused to work.  And finally, adding insult to injury, my laptop overheated and switched itself off.  So I drove home again, fighting back tears of frustration and feeling very much 'got at'.

To find that ...... the internet connection was back to normal on my desktop.

I then phoned Vodafone and was patiently talked through rebooting the BlackBerry ..... which is now working fine again. Words can't describe the relief.

It's horrid feeling so helpless and unable to do anything to solve the problem.  It's also very sobering to realise just how much my business has come to depend on being connected to the internet.....

My nerves are still in shreds and I'm exhausted from all the stress.  Goodnight!