Posts Tagged ‘business support’

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 »

Do you ever have those weeks where you think that you need a clone? Where, if you have yet another “brilliant” idea you’ll just about explode? That’s been me this week. In between organising the rebranding process for my business, working on existing projects, fulfilling my commitments to the Working Women’s Network and the Wakehurst Junior Rugby club, meeting new clients and sending out several proposals for new accounts, I have still had to be a Mum, a wife, a housekeeper.

Now I’m not asking for sympathy here. You make your bed, you lie in it. But, sometimes I find myself so overwhelmed with people and work demanding my attention that it’s hard to know where to start.

In an earlier post I told you all about getting organised with the online collaboration tool, Projjex and following the advice of Katrena Friel of BSI Learning at the Priority Management Workshop.

This is all fantastic and has revolutionised my daily approach to work. However, it doesn’t answer those questions I have about where to take my business next, what’s the best way to deal with my accounting, what do I do about hiring someone to help me out?

Apart from my initial set-up and branding where I employed the services of a graphic designer to create my brand, and consulted a solicitor to draft my terms and conditions, I have always done everything in and for my business, yes, even down to creating the website.

But, I seem to have reached a new level in my business where bringing in the experts for advice and practical handling of certain aspects seems to be the only way to go. I have recently started the rebranding process with a delightful graphic designer (who just happens to be part of my business mastermind group) to create a new logo for the next phase of my business. I will be working with professional web design company, The WebShowroom, to create a new and (totally) improved website and I think that I will soon need to hand over the money management to someone who actually enjoys asking people for money!

I am also getting to the stage where I will need to consider hiring someone to help me actually deliver the work, a process that I’m not particularly looking forward to (apart from handing over some of the work, obviously). For this, I think I will need the help of a business coach to guide me through all of the pitfalls that this entails.

Basically, it has dawned on me that I bring certain skills and talents to my business and, by taking on every aspect of it I dilute those talents and what makes me strong in business. So, it’s time to bring in the professionals and outsource the things I don’t like to do and things that others are much better at.

And, after Linda Hailey’s keynote presentation this week on Your Business Your Future I will be better placed to know which professionals I need to call in! I’ll give you my verdict next week.

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.

Some truly amazing things are happening in my world at the moment! Wow, that’s a pretty bold statement. But it’s true. All of a sudden, I’m rushed off my feet with new projects and interesting work. So much for a recession! I’ll admit it isn’t accidental. I have been beavering away behind the scenes so that I get myself out there, make connections and stay in touch with clients.

Over the last six months I’ve been selectively networking at some key events, such as the Flying Solo Live! conference and Carolyn Stafford’s Connect Marketing breakfasts, and I’ve made some pretty amazing connections with some driven business people, not least Angela Raspass from Ideas into Action and founder of the Working Women’s Network.

At the same time I have started to put plans into place to expand my business and what I offer my clients. Part of this process has been to attend courses, seminars and workshops and spend time researching and learning new things to push the business forward.

And, it’s really paying dividends, way more than I could have anticipated or hoped for. I am really excited at the prospects for my little old business. And, I have to admit, more than a little scared. That’s right, I’m out there in the open telling you all I’m scared! And for a number of reasons. All of a sudden it looks like my business could actually turn into what I have planned for it, and that means that I really need to be on the ball to make sure that I keep it progressing forward. It also means that I need to make the right decisions to seize the opportunities that are presented to me. And, wondering if I will recognise the opportunities and then make the right decisions is a fairly daunting prospect. Sometimes it’s enough to keep me awake at night!

Getting direction for your business is vital to its survival. And making sure that you don’t just start chasing your tail instead of having a clear path to follow will make the difference between being successful and being overwhelmed by the enormity of it all.

I’m looking forward to Linda Hailey’s presentation, Your Business Your Future, at the Working Women’s Network event on Tuesday 26^th May. Linda is a small business consultant and author and will be speaking about how to recognise where your business sits on the business timeline and how to plan accordingly. It’s come at a time when I really feel that I’m approaching a cross-roads and need some signposts to point me in the right direction. I’ve already taken the business timeline test so I’ll be ready to hear what she has to tell me. Then, watch out world ‘cause I’ll be armed and ready for that next vital step in the life of my business.

Hope to see you there. I suddenly have this crazy vision in my head of us all walking out with our own personal signpost to success!

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.

Anyone who knows me personally is probably sick of hearing me harping on about how amazingly wonderful my business mastermind group is. It started as an idea from the Flying Solo Forums and grew from there with me asking a few people I knew who ran businesses in my area if they were interested in giving it a go. We all run small enterprises and meet once a month to have a yarn about our month in business.

I know this is a fairly popular concept. Valerie Khoo has spoken about it in her enewsletter and refers to the support she gets from her group often. I am such a supporter of this idea as a business tool that I thought I’d share my top 5 reasons as to why you need to have a business mastermind group too.

1. Get real-life solutions to your business problems. Sometimes in business you come across the curly ones. Situations you just don’t know how to approach or you’re not sure what direction to go in next. When you raise these questions with your business mastermind group you invariably get several options to choose from along with a general consensus of what might be the best direction. Case in point, at our last meeting I raised the issue of my new business name and branding. The group members immediately took it on board, set to work on the napkins and threw a few ideas around. I now have my new name ready to go when I am!
2. Get honest feedback on your ideas. When you’re working solo in a business, or you’re the boss and the only decision-maker in your organisation, it’s sometimes hard to know whether an idea you have is likely to be a good one or a fizzer. Because your mastermind group members are all ‘at your level’ you can rely on an honest opinion about your ideas, usually backed up by personal experience or similar situations.
3. Develop a strong bond with other business owners. Although the primary aim of a business mastermind group isn’t to get business, it’s inevitable that the people in your group will become strong promoters of all of the group members. And, because of your regular monthly (or whatever time-frame you set) meeting, they will know a significant amount about your business so that anyone who receives a recommendation about you from them will be more than likely totally sold on you by the time they first contact you. You can’t buy that kind of promotion!
4. Accountability. When you run your own business, whether as a solo operation or as a business owner with staff, you are the only one who sets personal deadlines for your own business. Of course, when we are delivering products or services to clients, we are accountable to their needs and deadlines. But, what about when it comes to propelling your own business forward? You know what I’m talking about, that new website you need, the signage for your shop in a strategic place that will bring more customers in. Your mastermind group allows you to table a task that you’re going to attack between meetings and then makes you accountable for it. And, watch out, they can be pretty tough if you don’t meet your promises!
5. Good old human interaction. This applies equally to solo business operators and those with staff. My group meets once a month at a local pub for lunch on a Thursday. By making the meetings off-site for lunch it forces us to take a social break and just spend time talking with other business owners about business, life, the footy or whatever happens to come up. If you achieve nothing else, at least it forces you to take some time out, reflect, relax and come back renewed.

Getting your business mastermind group together really comes down to your locality, interests and people you click with. Our group has both men and women but you may prefer to have a group of just business women, or business women who are also Mums. It just depends on what works for you. I would recommend limiting the numbers to around 10 though, otherwise you lose the intimacy and value that the group can give you.

A great place to start looking is the Working Womens Network ning site. Hop on there and start a group of your own. List your interests and see who thinks the way that you do.

Alternatively, you could post something on the Flying Solo Forums to see if there are like-minded business owners you can connect with. Or, you could contact several business owners you know already and see if they would like to form a group, along with some people they may know. There isn’t really a set formula, the main aim of the game is to connect with people for the long-term benefit of everyone involved.

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.