Posts Tagged ‘network’

One of the things I find, being in business, is that there are always so many events that arrive in my inbox, my Twitter feed or my Facebook page on a daily basis. Some are intended to educate, some to inspire and some to just connect.

But, with a business to run (and grow), a family of three boys and a husband, and several voluntary commitments, available time to make the most of all the events is severely limited. I sometimes find myself wishing that I could clone myself just to get out and about.

So, what do you do? Be realistic, be selective and be discerning. You need to assess what is most important to you at any given time. Yes, it’s important to network, yes it’s important to keep your skills up to date but you can’t just do that at the expense of actually running your business or, for that matter, at the expense of spending quality time with your family.

I am faced with the prospect over the next two weeks of two and three nights in a row where I may not see my children (other than for the hour or so it takes them to get ready before I take them to school – not exactly quality time can I just say quietly!). Is this really how I want to exist? The answer to that is obviously no but, on occasion I do make that sacrifice if there is something that I perceive to be of significance or that I feel will propel my business forward. It isn’t something that I do often and I tend to choose one event over another if that situation occurs.

So how do you choose? Well, last week there was a fantastic three day event called Connect Now. There were amazing speakers, many of them who I would love to meet. There were lots of topics relevant to my business and I knew that lots of people I connect to online but who I haven’t yet met in person would be there. I even had the option to purchase tickets at a reduced price. But, I didn’t go? Why? Well, many of the topics I have already learned about either online or by attending previous seminars (or by using myself) and I need a different level of information now. I have met a lot of the people who did go and continue to connect with the others online, and I know that there will be opportunities to meet the ones I haven’t yet connected with IRL (sorry, online speak – In Real Life!). And, it was in the school holidays and, while my husband spent the first week with the children, I was planning to spend time with them the following week and I didn’t feel that amount of time out of the business was justified. Nor did I feel that it took precedence over spending time with my boys.

So, I let that one slip through to the keeper and will work on the assumption that there will be something else available soon to plug any holes I may have in my understanding of the topics.

Basically, when I choose events I think about the relevance to my skill development, potential to add to my network with quality contacts and, let’s face it, whether I think it will be enjoyable.

I’m looking forward to the events I have coming up in the next couple of weeks, I’ll get to meet Max Markson (you pick where that fits in my criteria!), I have been invited to attend a client social event and I am working with a client at an event where she can showcase her products. And, I’ll be experiencing the powers of speed networking for the first time at our Speed Networking event on 21^st April. If you’re pushed for time and want to meet lots of people, surely that’s one way to go!

So, what are your criteria for selecting or rejecting events to go to? What do you look for most?

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.

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 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.

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.

Inspirational and motivational! That’s me this week. Why? You say. Well, this week I am organised. I know, something we all aspire to but never seem to get there right? And, you ask, how have I achieved this zen-like status?

A couple of things have propelled me there really. The first was finding a system that can keep me organised and on track on a daily basis, and the second was attending the Working Womens Network Workshop for April on Priority Management presented by Katrena Friel of BSI Learning, who showed us how to recognise procrastination and habits that hold us back from achieving what we want to.

On Easter Monday, whilst my delightful husband was having quality time with our three boys – elsewhere – I got to work catching up with timesheets, accounts and invoicing. I know, I know, Public Holiday, but after three days at home without turning on the computer I was beginning to get the shakes, and the boys love nothing more than a day out with their Dad. Win, win! And, because it wasn’t technically a “work” day I could work on things that weren’t revenue-producing without feeling like I should be doing something else.

Once I had it sorted, I signed up to an online project management and timekeeping service called Projjex. I have been searching for something like this for some time and of everything I have seen this was the least complex, simplest to install and is very cost-effective. Now, we’re all about sharing at the Working Womens Network, and this is just my own preference, so I’d love to hear about any other products or services that have helped you achieve the same. Just leave a comment below and share the love!

Once set up, I now have every project I’m working on carefully entered and logged down to the smallest detail. How can being tied to deadlines make you feel liberated? Well, I no longer have to rely on anything in my head when it comes to delivering what I’ve promised to people. This frees up my headspace for creativity and delivery of what really matters.

It has also simplified one of my most hated tasks, timekeeping and invoicing. With a simple click I enter my times against my projects, I can even log it against specific tasks within a project and then I can forget about it. More free headspace!

All of this tied in beautifully to what Katrena discussed in the workshop and brought me back to my desk with total enthusiasm and immense productivity. My afternoon produced results I couldn’t have predicted and gave me a real sense of achievement for the day.

So, inspiration and motivation is what I’m working with this week, which will put me in the right frame of mind for the next Working Womens Network Event, Inspiration, Motivation, Health & Well-Being with our key note speaker Di Westaway of Wild Women on Top. I’m looking forward to building on what I’ve taken away from Katrena’s workshop and learning how to set and achieve my goals, while being inspired by her incredible story.

Share your business and networking thoughts with the Network.

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.