It’s that time of year again. You know the time that you’re still thinking about the year ahead and how you can do things differently to last year. Then you realise that it’s already the middle of February and in no time at all a quarter of the year will be gone!

I have spent a lot of time in the last couple of months really thinking about the direction I want to take the business in and how I can go about it.

At the end of last year I was convinced that the answer to all my stress and lack of time was to get staff. I started to put the process of creating systems and procedures in place with my VA and thought that I’d come back in 2010 frantically searching for people to take things off my hands.

Instead, Bronwen from http://www.thevirtualassistant.com.au/ started scheduling and organising me within an inch of my life and, it became apparent that my biggest problem was lack of organisation. And, with a small amount of discipline, which she’s very good at, I am managing to keep on top of things and put time into making it grow.

I have come to realise that there a few other things I need to put into place before I go down the path of staff, not least making sure that those systems and procedures are well in place, both on the internal business side and on the client side, but that necessity may be closer now that I have time to properly plan my next moves. Something that I really haven’t done at all, ever!

Not that I don’t know where I want the business to go. I have a very clear vision in my mind of the kind of business I want to end up with. But, that’s big picture stuff. You know corner office, picture windows, overlooking the Bridge from the north side, great team of talented bright young things, and a long list of fantastic rugby clients!

But, where’s my map to get me there. My next move certainly won’t take me to the gorgeous sandstone building in North Sydney that I picture as my office address one day. There are many other things to take into consideration such as whether it’s practical to be more than half an hour away from the kids’ school and the thousand activities I have to get them to in a week.

This is where I need to spend my focus now, and before any more of this year disappears. I need to know what my plans for business development are, how I’m going to address the issue of wanting to move into an office, whether it’s a viable option for the business and the steps I need to take to make sure that I’m way ahead at the end of the year. I’ve made a start already with Julia Bickerstaff’s book, How to bake a business. But actually getting that pen and paper out is already proving to be something that keeps being put on the back burner!

This month’s workshop, Writing your Business Plan, will be perfect for me, mainly because you actually get to start working on your plan there and then so it’ll take away that first procrastination that is inevitable every time you think about writing a business plan.

Until next time.

Karen

Karen Morris is the Working Womens Network media office. She runs Inscriptions Media, a copywriting and PR Consultancy, is a contributor to Flying Solo and is a wife and mother to three active boys. She loves life and work and has an insatiable appetite to learn all things new, especially all things 2.0.

This year has been a truly amazing experience from the aspect of networking and the power that it brings.

My involvement with the Working Women’s Network has been very rewarding, giving me opportunities to meet fantastic business women, amazing and inspirational speakers, an opportunity to express my thoughts and the ability to build connections in the media.

Those of you who have read my blog before have been regaled with my stories of the power of Twitter, an amazing global network that has given me access to some of the most incredible and influential business people here and overseas.

An extension of the Twitter network has been the amazing real life connections that I have made through attending Northside Coffee Mornings (#nscm) in Mosman, which has introduced me to people who have made a significant difference to my approach to business, even in such a short time.

But, perhaps one of the biggest things I will take away from my networking this year is the unbelievable generosity and instant spirit of community that my network connections have shown, both when I organised the official launch of the Project 18 website and when Iggy Pintado sent an urgent Christmas request to help make the lives of 15 women at The Stepping Stone crisis centre.

I have been moved to tears on more than one occasion to see that community spirit is definitely alive and well amongst small business owners in Australia. It is so fantastic to see that networking brings people together, not just for business, but for the good of others as well.

The working year is now officially over and I’m rewarding myself with a ‘proper’ break for once, followed by some serious planning time for 2010. This year has been amazingly rewarding, both for the growth of my business and me personally. And, having seen many of my business associates experiencing a similar story, it is encouraging for a successful year next year.

I’d like to wish you all a wonderful Christmas and New Year holiday period and hope that you have a safe, happy and prosperous 2010. And, I’m looking forward to seeing you at the fabulous events and workshops that are lined up for Working Women’s Network members and guests next year, starting with a great Business View Panel in February and a fantastic Networking event with Robyn Henderson and Iggy Pintado to catapult yourself into successful networking for 2010.

Until next time.

Karen

Karen Morris is the Working Womens Network media officer. She runs Inscriptions Media, a copywriting and PR Consultancy, is a contributor to Flying Solo and is a wife and mother to three active boys. She loves life and work and has an insatiable appetite to learn all things new, especially all things 2.0.

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, the issue of how to grow the business and add to the team as well as obtaining new clients is a subject that has taken up a lot of my thought processes in recent times.

At our last networking event Sharon Williams, CEO of Taurus Marketing, took us through some of the issues that businesses face when they begin to grow, including ways to grow your team that won’t make having staff a drain on your finances.

I was very pleased to hear Sharon suggest that taking on Mums who needed flexible working hours from home on a contract basis was how she grew her team in the beginning. This has been the direction that I would like to move in and it’s always good to have your ideas and thoughts backed up by someone as experienced and successful as Sharon. Read the rest of this entry »

I suppose that’s quite a revealing question – particularly about my current business position! And, although I’m not particularly being kept awake at night I am increasingly finding that I am constantly thinking about and planning for the business.

I recently launched my new website, created for me by the wonderful Sergio at The Web Showroom. And, whilst I am thrilled with the results and have received nothing but positive feedback for the website, I had hoped that once the process of rebranding was over things would settle down nicely and I could continue to focus on my work.

But, as business owners what is our work? Is it the skill we have for what we physically do for a job, in my case PR and business communication, or is it something much bigger than that? Read the rest of this entry »

Firstly, apologies for the lack of blog posts of late. A few crazy weeks have kept my nose to the grindstone and I barely feel like I’ve been able to come up for air.

However, it’s never really as bad as we make it out to be is it? Sure, I’ve had a lot on my plate and it hasn’t been helped by falling at the same time as the total rebranding of my business, but with a little organisation we really can fulfil the commitments we set for ourselves can’t we?

In the last couple of weeks I’ve had some totally amazing experiences that have helped shape the future of my business and my attitude towards work, life and achievements. Read the rest of this entry »

Its marketing month at the Working Women’s network and that got me thinking about how I market my business.

I have never used paid advertising to get clients and always seem to have had plenty of work to do for most of the time that I’ve been in business. But I was thinking back to when I started out compared to how my business runs these days.

Right at the beginning there were the anxious, sweaty-palm moments wondering if this thing was ever going to get off the ground and trying to decide what the hell I thought I was doing. Then, as time progressed and I moved on from doing free work for friends (come on, we all did it) to having actual paid clients I managed to settle into a pretty comfortable routine of having work trickle in to fill the space where I wasn’t tending to the needs of a couple of raucous boys and a cute, but demanding baby.

I started to see a pattern develop where I would find myself with quiet periods in around July/August and then it would pick up again steadily until the following year.

This didn’t seem so bad but, in theory I was only a part-time business owner and it wasn’t going to go anywhere without having a serious look at marketing. So, I decided it was time to pull on my marketing boots and hike off into the big wide world of networking. No mean feat for a Mum who had been out of corporate circulation for several years and who had settled into a relative world of isolation and park catchups!

I made the decision that, with my youngest heading off to school at the beginning of this year, I needed to start the wheels in motion before I suddenly found myself with time on my hands and nothing to do. And, I decided that networking events were the fastest way to make connections with potential clients.

One of my first events last year was Carolyn Stafford’s Small Business Big Brand Workshop in Sydney. I had actually chosen the workshop both as a networking opportunity and with the intention of gaining some knowledge that I could pass on to my clients. Instead, I came out with a head buzzing with ideas about how I could change the direction of my business.

Since my first very nervous foray into networking events I haven’t looked back and have managed to change from being a part-time contractor to fully-fledged business owner. So, what’s been the difference? A shift in attitude and a move towards serious marketing of the business.

I still don’t pay for advertising, and I sometimes get to the end of the week feeling like all I’ve done is market my business. But, this year has seen my business grow exponentially through my personal exposure via Flying Solo, Twitter, appearing the media and, of course, the Working Women’s Network.

Carolyn showed me that there are many ways that you can market your business and help it grow. You just have to get a little creative and put in the effort.

I’m looking forward to seeing Carolyn again tomorrow night at the Top Seven Ways to Market Your Business networking event and catching up on some more marketing insights.

Until next time.

Karen

Karen Morris is the Working Womens Network media officer. She runs Inscriptions, a copywriting and PR Consultancy, is a contributor to Flying Solo and is a wife and mother to three active boys. She loves life and work and has an insatiable appetite to learn all things new, especially all things 2.0.

At last night’s Working Women’s Network event on Speed Thinking Dr Ken Hudson managed to entertain as well as inform us about how valuable speed thinking can be for your business.

Ken’s keynote was one I’ve been looking to for a while but I didn’t expect to enjoy it quite as much as I did.

For those of you who couldn’t make it, Speed Thinking is a concept developed by Ken after his research seemed to demonstrate that people are more creative when they are forced to produce ideas in a limited amount of time. You can see more information about his findings over on his website.

When I was preparing the press release for this network event I was intrigued by how this could help me with my business and decided to see if I could make it work for me.

Ken’s theory sets a goal of coming up with 9 ideas in 2 minutes for whatever the problem, issue or challenge you have to find a solution to.

So, I decided to have a go. When you have to write articles, press releases, copy or plan publicity and PR campaigns, like with anything else I imagine, the hardest thing is to get going. By clearing the mind of all the unnecessary clutter at the beginning, asking yourself a simple question and coming up with 9 quick answers is quite liberating.

However, I am yet to make it my friend. As Ken demonstrated last night, getting out of the old “filtering” habits of second –guessing every idea you have or answer you give, is actually quite hard to do. I failed miserably in both of the excercises where I had to come up with the 9 “answers”.

But, I won’t despair yet. All day, when I have had to tackle a new idea, or even when driving to collect the children and I have a new thought, I have wondered what 9 ways I could tackle it! And, despite being hopeless at producing 9 pearls of wisdom in two minutes (well, actually he gave us 30 seconds!) I was heartened by the fact that, when working with another network member, Julie Mackay of MPathic, in one of Ken’s experiments, we found a fantastic way that we can work together for the benefit of each other’s clients in the future.

The whiteboard is now my friend and I will keep practising until I can rid myself of the habit of worrying about the immediate fruits of my thoughts and realise that random thoughts can be the most powerful and can also be fine-tuned into something magnificent later.

Today I receoved the first draft of my new website from The Web Showroom and I think this is the perfect opportunity to put speed thinking into operation. My first impressions were favourable to say the least but, if I were completely happy with the first rendition I think the designer would have to be given a knighthood. So, I’m going to ask myself several questions about the site (eg. What 9 things would improve the look of the site) and see what I come up with. It’s a very exciting experiment, not least because I hope that it will produce the perfect website that reflects exactly what I want to convey to my clients. I have to say, it should be a relatively easy task because it isn’t too far off now.

And, in preparation for next week’s Working Women’s Network workshop on Negotiation Skills with Jack Fraenkel, here’s my speed thinking take on what makes good negotiation skills:

Openness

Generosity

Kindness

Listening

Hearing

Observing

Talking

Smiling

Friendliness

I wonder how I’ll do?! J

Until next time.

Karen

Karen Morris is the Working Womens Network media officer. She runs Inscriptions, a copywriting and PR Consultancy, is a contributor to Flying Solo and is a wife and mother to three active boys. She loves life and work and has an insatiable appetite to learn all things new, especially all things 2.0.

At the recent ‘Effective Online Marketing’ workshop that we held at the Working Women’s Network, blogging, like Twitter, was another topic that came up as something that people knew something about but weren’t sure exactly how to make full use of.

If you’re a technical kind of person (like my husband!) the history of blogs is quite interesting. Blogs, short for web logs, began in the late 90’s. There are several types of blogs such as personal blogs, corporate blogs, video blogs and more. You can learn all about it on Wikipedia if you really want to! However, from a business perspective, how you can make the most of a blog to get your message across and attract new business is far more interesting.

There are a few reasons you would start blogging to help your business. Firstly, having a blog on your website provides you with the opportunity to create fresh, frequently updated, keyword-rich content, all of which Google and the other search engines love.

Secondly, it gives you a way to communicate with your audience, however large or small, about topics that relate to your business in some way. This gives you the opportunity to establish yourself as an expert in your area and raise your business profile.

Thirdly, as I do, you may blog on sites other than your own if your topic isn’t relevant to your specialist subject matter or you have an interest in a similar topic and can establish yourself as a regular contributor to a popular blogging site. This again allows you to elevate yourself as an expert and drives traffic to your own site from a well, established and popular site. Again, something that Google and his friends are particularly fond of.

All of this is great, you say. But what on earth do you write about on a blog? How often should you post a blog and how do you promote it to the wider world out there?

Working out what to write on a blog is definitely the hardest aspect of the job (believe me, here I speak from experience!). When you’re first starting out it’s a good idea to jot down several ideas and make a start by writing your first few posts before you’ve even introduced your audience to your incredible wit and charm. This means that when you do start to publish the posts you have a few up your sleeve and you feel less pressure when it comes to writing one (oh, if only I followed my own advice on that one!).

Knowing what to write about will get easier as you become more of a veteran and you are more comfortable sharing your opinions with the rest of the world. Mixing up the topics is probably a good idea. You can cover achievements in your business, new customers who have found your services to be of benefit, short case studies where you have had a situation arise with a client and it provides an excellent way to showcase how you can solve issues that people have, topics that are popular in the news that relate to your business, products and services.

You can also use your blog to raise customer service issues, either that you have experienced as a customer or as the service provider, and how the issues were resolved satisfactorily or otherwise. Basically, since blogs are a vehicle for people to express their opinion on a topic, either as the author or a reader, the subject matter you write about is limitless. Relating it to your business and keywords are the key points to remember.

Here’s a good place to point out that blogs are not only useful if you write them. Making comments on blogs that relate to your business is also good to help establish your brand, especially since you can add a link to your website when you leave the comment, again helping your Google ranking.

There are many blogs out in the blogosphere that will give you pointers and tips on how to make your blog effective. But, if you want a comprehensive guide to blogging you really should visit Darren Rowse’s Blog – ProBlogger. Darren is, by all accounts from my Melbourne Twitter friends, a great Aussie bloke from Melbourne. He is also one of the World’s leading bloggers and his site will give you countless tips. I recently started his 31 Days to Build a Better Blog series, which gives you practical excercises on how to improve the content of your blog and promote it to the world. He has created a workbook out of this series and, if you’re serious about making your blog work for you I highly recommend it. By providing a step-by-step guide to daily (or weekly if you prefer to extend it) tasks it is great value at under $20.00.

And, when it comes to promoting your blog and getting people to read it, there are several options. Again, Darren has a comprehensive list of ways to do this here.

Sometimes something comes along that just gives you a kick in the pants and says get your act together.

In recent blog posts I’ve told you about the changes that are happening in my business, the rebranding, offering more services, getting busier and busier.

Despite all this wonderous activity I often find myself paralysed – with fear that I’m punching above my weight (thanks VB!), with the amount that I have to get done in a day, with the decisions I have to make and wondering if taking my business in this direction is the right thing to do.

So, what’s the snap-out-of-it moment I’ve experienced? A couple of days ago I came across an amazing lady through Twitter (yes, I know this won’t surprise you at all!) who has reminded me that anything is possible if you just put your mind to it.

This inspiring lady is Catherine Bolt, an artist, writer and mother of 9; yes you read it right. My typing is very good today! Although her blog is very new, I already feel I know a lot about her, especially a lot to inspire me into just getting on with it all.

Now, I’m not the kind of person who complains about how much I have to do (unless you’re my husband of course, then you’re likely to hear much complaining and carrying on!). And, I’m pretty proud of how much I can achieve in a day with my business, three children, regular visits to the gym, spending time with family and friends, contributing articles to Flying Solo, commitments to the local rugby club and the Working Women’s Network, and all without any family support.

But, I absolutely take my hat off to Catherine who managed to build a hugely successful multi-million dollar business at the same time as raising (and actually producing a couple at the same time) 9 children. You can read her story here.

However, if that wasn’t enough, Catherine walked away from her multi-million dollar business to create a better life for her children. But she’s not content with making a better life just for her own family. Her latest venture is the selfless act of someone who knows how to get things done and succeed at whatever she puts her mind to.

Catherine and her family have committed to helping the thousands of orphaned Indonesian children who live in extreme poverty and who have no hope for a happy future. I’ll let you hop over to her blog to read about her plans to help them but, in a nutshell she wants to help them grow up in a ‘family’ environment that offers them hope and a sustainable life.

So, today I’m saying goodbye to procrastination. I’m embracing my fears and I am using them to help me achieve what I set out to achieve. And, although it won’t be much in the scheme of things, if I can help Catherine spread the word about her grand adventure through ideas, advice and inspiration, it will add a little more shine to what is the wonderful tapestry of life.

If you’re ever feeling overwhelmed by your business I hope you find your inspiration wherever you can to keep your business going in the right direction.

Until next time.

Karen

Karen Morris is the Working Womens Network media officer. She runs Inscriptions, a copywriting and PR Consultancy, is a contributor to Flying Solo and is a wife and mother to three active boys. She loves life and work and has an insatiable appetite to learn all things new, especially all things 2.0.

At the recent Working Women’s Network ‘Effective Online Marketing’ workshop, the issue of Twitter was raised briefly. It came to light that lots of people had heard of Twitter but not many really understood much about it.

So, as the Working Women’s Network’s resident Queen of Twitter (J) I thought I’d give you a few pointers about how this popular social network can help you with your business.

First, a little bit of background on exactly what Twitter is. Basically, it is a microblogging site that allows you to post ‘Tweets’ of up to 140 characters with the premise of saying what you are doing. For any of you who are FaceBook users, it is similar to updating your status.

At least, this was how Twitter started. I would contend that it has developed into something so much more than just posting inane statements about what you had for lunch. What it has become is a powerful way to share information, learn new things and develop new relationships for your business.

So, how can you use Twitter for your business? Firstly, let’s look at some basics.

• Joining Twitter: head to http://twitter.com and hit the Join button
• Enter your name (make sure you add your first and last so people can find you)
• Select a user name. There is some debate over whether you should use your personal name or business name. Some suggest that if you are using Twitter for business you should use your business name. I use my personal name (@karenmorris) as I feel that it is easier to connect with people being yourself. You can promote your business in your bio.
• Complete your bio. This is important. For people to connect with you they need to know that you have similar interests and ideas. It’s good to give people an idea of what you do as well as some personal interests
• Add an ‘avatar’, your photo. It’s a bit daunting to have your photo on the interwebs but I have my business promotion photo as my avatar. Again, I feel this is important for people to get to know me. I do follow a lot of people who use their logo or other pictures but it’s nice to know who you’re chatting to. It also makes it easy to see at a glance who’s tweeting at you!

Okay, so you’re on Twitter, what next? The first and probably most important thing to take on board is that, just like any other relationship-building exercise, Twitter is not an instant broadcast medium for telling everyone how wonderful you and your products/services are. It takes time to build a network of followers (I’ll come to what that is in a moment) and, to build a good network of followers it needs to be done through genuine connection and interaction. There are lots of ‘get 400 followers a day’ schemes out there and they come in many forms. I wouldn’t advise taking any of them up as having thousands of followers who have no connection to you is like a fashionista attending a tech conference!

So, what are followers and how do you get them? Followers are like ‘friends’ on FaceBook or ‘contacts’ on LinkedIn. Basically, they are the people you connect with. To get started on Twitter you can do various searches either for people you already know or for people in your industry. Then, once you start following people you need to start interacting. You can tweet about things that you are reading that would be interesting to people in your line of work, things that are in the news or whatever you think will spark a conversation. It’s also good to see what other people are saying and then reply to them.

To get you started some great people to follow, who know a lot about social media are @SilkCharm (Laurel Papworth), @problogger (Darren Rowse) @SuziDafnis from ABN @sammutimer, who is probably the MOST enthusiastic social media champion you’ll ever come across, and the list could go on and on. And, it goes without saying, feel free to follow me @karenmorris! Once you follow, join the conversation by replying to tweets people make and the follow-backs will start flowing.

How do you know who to follow? Well, the rules of Twitter are really very similar to real life. By looking at a person’s twitter stream you can get a feel for things that interest them and whether you would have a connection. I have a few different types of people I follow. I connect with quite a few PR people, the sharing on Twitter is phenomenal and doing the same job as someone else doesn’t make us competitors, it somehow brings us together. I also follow a few rugby people such as @JTActiveMngt, who is also a great marketer and champion of getting Australia active again, @willcarling (yes, THE Will Carling, for those who know anything about rugby, and he found me first!). Then there are people I have found through conversations with others and have found that we have things in common.

Do you have time? This is a BIG question. Getting involved in Twitter can be a time-draining exercise. It is very easy to get sucked into many conversations, follow links that people post to interesting articles and find that the day is half gone. It is all about discipline and how to manage your day. In the early stages when you are still trying to build a following and make connections it will probably require more time and effort but after a while you can just join in for short periods and still maintain your profile. Using apps like TweetDeck or Destroy Twitter to manage your Twitter groups and messages also makes it a little less time consuming.

How do you follow the rules? Like any other networking situation there are several rules of engagement and terminology that take a little bit of getting used to, especially all the terminology. The best advice I can give you for this is to go and read some of the many, many blogs out there that tell you exactly how it’s done. The best place to find out all there is to know about Twitter is a site called Mashable. This is an endless source of information about social media in general. Sam Mutimer also posted a great blog recently about the art of retweeting (I did mention specific terminology!) and I came across another great blog today by @NickBowditch who runs a family travel business on the Central Coast, on 30 things I wish I’d known before I joined Twitter.

I could go on ad infinitum about Twitter and how to use it but I think the best way to find out is to do it for yourself. It may seem a little scary at first and not worthwhile but, once you have started to connect with people it becomes a great resource for ideas, information and business. And, if you get stuck you can always send me a message!

Happy tweeting!

Until next time.

Karen

Karen Morris is the Working Womens Network media officer. She runs Inscriptions, a copywriting and PR Consultancy, is a contributor to Flying Solo and is a wife and mother to three active boys. She loves life and work and has an insatiable appetite to learn all things new, especially all things 2.0.