Tuesday, 5 January 2010
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Thanks for visiting this page. Our blog has now moved to our brand new site at Exceptional Thinking. Check us out by visiting: http://www.exceptionalthinking.co.uk/index.php/blog
Monday, 7 December 2009
Do you know what your priorities are?
OK, I admit - at the beginning of last week, I had 87 tasks on my to-do list. These mainly consisted of tasks that I wanted to get out of the way before Christmas. But with only 2 weeks to go before we 'break up' for 2 weeks, I finally had to be realistic with myself and realise that much as I'd like to, I wasn't going to get everything finished.
So, in order to be clearer with myself, I asked the question of "what are my priorities?" between now and the 18th December? And the answer was "finishing off the website."
Once I'd focused, I cleared my to-do list and on it are only items involved with finishing off the website. Because I now know what my priorities are, it's meant that I'm much more likely to get this finished instead of trying to do everything.
So in the last two weeks before Christmas, do you know what your priorities are for your business? This isn't your to-do list, this is asking yourself what the big things are that you want to get finished and out of the way. Once you know, you'll be much more focused and can work on finishing off these tasks.
So, in order to be clearer with myself, I asked the question of "what are my priorities?" between now and the 18th December? And the answer was "finishing off the website."
Once I'd focused, I cleared my to-do list and on it are only items involved with finishing off the website. Because I now know what my priorities are, it's meant that I'm much more likely to get this finished instead of trying to do everything.
So in the last two weeks before Christmas, do you know what your priorities are for your business? This isn't your to-do list, this is asking yourself what the big things are that you want to get finished and out of the way. Once you know, you'll be much more focused and can work on finishing off these tasks.
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
Use Christmas to promote your business
It’s getting close to that time of year again – when everyone starts to talk about the ‘C’ word and looks forward to their two week break. Before you look forward too much to your break though, I want you to stop for a minute and just think about promoting over the Christmas period.
It’s actually a great time to promote – after all, you were probably planning to send people a Christmas Card anyway, weren’t you? We might as well kill two birds with one stone.
Let’s have a look at some of the ways you could promote your business over this festive time.
1. Send out vouchers
My first suggestion is to send out vouchers with your Christmas Cards – what have you got to lose? If you can make it relevant to a product or service that people have to take advantage of before the New Year, you’ll also get people acting now rather than forgetting about it when January comes.
2. Thank your current customers
Christmas is always the time of year when we tell our customers how much we appreciate them, so they’ll be expecting this anyway. Why not think about doing something a bit different for them? Perhaps invite them for a few drinks or visit them in person to say thank you.
3. Have a Christmassy offer
People need a reason to act before Christmas – otherwise they’ll just leave things until the New Year. Last year, we produced a CD on marketing that we told people about over December. This worked great because it was a low cost offer (they just had to pay for P&P) and it was something many people wanted to listen to over the Christmas period. What could you do?
4. The ‘Money Mountain’
Several radio stations do a ‘Money Mountain’ in early December, which is about raising money to help good causes. You can donate a product or service and in return you will get free publicity on the radio for an hour or so on the day of the auction. How great is that? Get involved – you might be surprised at the result.
5. Do you have plans for a January sale?
Everyone likes to feel that they’re getting a bargain when they buy something. Are you planning to have a sale for your customers? It could also be a big incentive for those who’ve been thinking about buying your products or services to do something about it.
6. Put in place a marketing plan for next year
While you’ve got a bit of breathing space between Christmas and the New Year, why not put a marketing plan for 2010 in place? A bit of thinking time is often just what’s needed to decide on your goals for next year and how you’re going to accomplish them.
7. Remember to be realistic
While you have all the best intentions to get more business over the Christmas period, remember that everyone is going to be starting to wind down between now and the beginning of January so if you run a service business and are expecting loads of customers, think again. Don’t be too discouraged about it though – use the time wisely to give yourself a kick start for the New Year.
Exceptional Thinking (http://www.exceptionalthinking.co.uk) provides help and advice to small businesses on their marketing and to people starting up in business.
It’s actually a great time to promote – after all, you were probably planning to send people a Christmas Card anyway, weren’t you? We might as well kill two birds with one stone.
Let’s have a look at some of the ways you could promote your business over this festive time.
1. Send out vouchers
My first suggestion is to send out vouchers with your Christmas Cards – what have you got to lose? If you can make it relevant to a product or service that people have to take advantage of before the New Year, you’ll also get people acting now rather than forgetting about it when January comes.
2. Thank your current customers
Christmas is always the time of year when we tell our customers how much we appreciate them, so they’ll be expecting this anyway. Why not think about doing something a bit different for them? Perhaps invite them for a few drinks or visit them in person to say thank you.
3. Have a Christmassy offer
People need a reason to act before Christmas – otherwise they’ll just leave things until the New Year. Last year, we produced a CD on marketing that we told people about over December. This worked great because it was a low cost offer (they just had to pay for P&P) and it was something many people wanted to listen to over the Christmas period. What could you do?
4. The ‘Money Mountain’
Several radio stations do a ‘Money Mountain’ in early December, which is about raising money to help good causes. You can donate a product or service and in return you will get free publicity on the radio for an hour or so on the day of the auction. How great is that? Get involved – you might be surprised at the result.
5. Do you have plans for a January sale?
Everyone likes to feel that they’re getting a bargain when they buy something. Are you planning to have a sale for your customers? It could also be a big incentive for those who’ve been thinking about buying your products or services to do something about it.
6. Put in place a marketing plan for next year
While you’ve got a bit of breathing space between Christmas and the New Year, why not put a marketing plan for 2010 in place? A bit of thinking time is often just what’s needed to decide on your goals for next year and how you’re going to accomplish them.
7. Remember to be realistic
While you have all the best intentions to get more business over the Christmas period, remember that everyone is going to be starting to wind down between now and the beginning of January so if you run a service business and are expecting loads of customers, think again. Don’t be too discouraged about it though – use the time wisely to give yourself a kick start for the New Year.
Exceptional Thinking (http://www.exceptionalthinking.co.uk) provides help and advice to small businesses on their marketing and to people starting up in business.
Tuesday, 24 November 2009
Can't be bothered moments...
This morning I had a "can't be bothered moment". It probably resulted from having cold all week and not sleeping properly, but all I wanted to do was go home and go back to bed. Knowing I couldn't really do that (it doesn't really set a good example to my team), I procrasinated for a couple of hours and then (just before I wrote this post), I gave myself a good talking to and decided to get on with completing just 5 things.
While some would argue that I shouldn't have pushed myself at that point and had the afternoon off, my argument is that none of us can really afford to do that. We all have deadlines, things that need to be done, planned and completed before we can have a break.
It's not like I don't have anything to do and for the most part I'm pretty excited about doing them. And if I don't, who will?
So, next time you have a "can't be bothered moment", give yourself a shake and make yourself get on with just a few tasks. Believe me (I'm currently on task 3 of 5), I feel loads better already and when I've done the 5, maybe I'll challenge myself to go for 10 tasks!
While some would argue that I shouldn't have pushed myself at that point and had the afternoon off, my argument is that none of us can really afford to do that. We all have deadlines, things that need to be done, planned and completed before we can have a break.
It's not like I don't have anything to do and for the most part I'm pretty excited about doing them. And if I don't, who will?
So, next time you have a "can't be bothered moment", give yourself a shake and make yourself get on with just a few tasks. Believe me (I'm currently on task 3 of 5), I feel loads better already and when I've done the 5, maybe I'll challenge myself to go for 10 tasks!
Tuesday, 17 November 2009
Looking After Yourself and Your Staff at Work
Wouldn’t it be great if our bodies could diagnose and fix themselves so we wouldn’t have to worry about going to the dentist, or visiting the doctor and you’d never fall foul of the usual round of cold and flu viruses that magically appear at this time of year?
Unfortunately, there isn’t yet a Matrix style programme that we can download into heads to sort out our health. And yet most of us, if we stopped to listen to our bodies and took some simple measures, could actually prevent a lot of the illnesses we have.
Ok so you’re rushing around trying to meet with clients, grabbing a quick lunch and preparing an important presentation, but a small amount of time spent on yourself and the welfare of your staff could pay dividends in the future. It’s one of those investments that we should make but often don’t to our cost.
Healthy Environment
Providing a healthy environment for you and your staff is vital to help reduce accidents and keeping people safe. It everyone’s responsibility to ensure not only that their working area is tidy but that their equipment is up to scratch. It’s also good to check they are sitting in the correct positions and are following the correct guidelines when using equipment. However, as their boss, it’s up to you to make sure they are aware of their responsibilities and that all new staff are given adequate guidelines and the appropriate training.
Reduce Stress
A tense environment can quickly escalate causing staff to burn out and is one of the main factors why people fall ill. They may even end up leaving if this pattern keeps repeating itself, and in extreme cases this can result in staff taking their employer to court. Using humour in the workplace can foster wellness, improve stress management and increase productivity and morale. Also ensuring you and your staff take regular breaks and use up their holidays on a regular basis will not only minimise the build up of stress but also help avoid the glut of holidays that workaholics always seem to find themselves with before the year end.
Staff Training
Providing training gives your staff the tools to help grow your business. After all, you’ve spent time and money choosing good staff so why wouldn’t you invest the time to train them? It’s not just about providing your staff with training on a regular basis but also coaching and mentoring them. Your input is vital in guiding your staff through tough times and gives them direction. They also need to know why they are being asked to do something and are much more likely to do a better job if they understand its importance
Recognise and Praise Achievements
When was the last time you gave your staff a pat on the back, or thanked them properly for their efforts? If you don’t praise them at least once a day then you’re not praising them enough. Everybody likes to be praised for a doing a good job and its important to ensure you do this on the same day. It makes staff feel valued and keeps them motivated. It’s the easiest thing to do and a simple courtesy costs nothing but is worth everything.
Rewards and Benefits
Bonuses schemes are always popular with staff as they recognise their achievements. However, they don’t always have to be monetary. Giving away mini rewards such as gift certificates or taking your staff out to lunch can make a big difference. Just as importantly though are the types of benefits your company can offer staff. These can also go a long way in making your staff feel valued whilst promoting loyalty and a ‘feel-good’ factor. Many companies offer benefits to their staff but one of the most important are health schemes. They let your staff know you are concerned about their wellbeing, particularly if they offer costs towards routine dental and optical treatment, eye tests and prescription charges or even in-patient and day patient care.
That’s why Exceptional Thinking recommends health policies such as Wellness cover from WPA http://www.wpa.org.uk/keithiliffe/. From as little as £15.00 each your staff can be covered for dental and optical, eye tests, prescription charges, hospital in-patient and day-patient allowances, specialist or second opinion, post hospital recovery bonus, allowance for attending A&E, physiotherapy, Health Screening, Maternity and Paternity and even a confidential stress counselling service.
Exceptional Thinking http://www.exceptionalthinking.co.uk/ provides help and advice to small business owners on their marketing and to people setting up in business.
Unfortunately, there isn’t yet a Matrix style programme that we can download into heads to sort out our health. And yet most of us, if we stopped to listen to our bodies and took some simple measures, could actually prevent a lot of the illnesses we have.
Ok so you’re rushing around trying to meet with clients, grabbing a quick lunch and preparing an important presentation, but a small amount of time spent on yourself and the welfare of your staff could pay dividends in the future. It’s one of those investments that we should make but often don’t to our cost.
Healthy Environment
Providing a healthy environment for you and your staff is vital to help reduce accidents and keeping people safe. It everyone’s responsibility to ensure not only that their working area is tidy but that their equipment is up to scratch. It’s also good to check they are sitting in the correct positions and are following the correct guidelines when using equipment. However, as their boss, it’s up to you to make sure they are aware of their responsibilities and that all new staff are given adequate guidelines and the appropriate training.
Reduce Stress
A tense environment can quickly escalate causing staff to burn out and is one of the main factors why people fall ill. They may even end up leaving if this pattern keeps repeating itself, and in extreme cases this can result in staff taking their employer to court. Using humour in the workplace can foster wellness, improve stress management and increase productivity and morale. Also ensuring you and your staff take regular breaks and use up their holidays on a regular basis will not only minimise the build up of stress but also help avoid the glut of holidays that workaholics always seem to find themselves with before the year end.
Staff Training
Providing training gives your staff the tools to help grow your business. After all, you’ve spent time and money choosing good staff so why wouldn’t you invest the time to train them? It’s not just about providing your staff with training on a regular basis but also coaching and mentoring them. Your input is vital in guiding your staff through tough times and gives them direction. They also need to know why they are being asked to do something and are much more likely to do a better job if they understand its importance
Recognise and Praise Achievements
When was the last time you gave your staff a pat on the back, or thanked them properly for their efforts? If you don’t praise them at least once a day then you’re not praising them enough. Everybody likes to be praised for a doing a good job and its important to ensure you do this on the same day. It makes staff feel valued and keeps them motivated. It’s the easiest thing to do and a simple courtesy costs nothing but is worth everything.
Rewards and Benefits
Bonuses schemes are always popular with staff as they recognise their achievements. However, they don’t always have to be monetary. Giving away mini rewards such as gift certificates or taking your staff out to lunch can make a big difference. Just as importantly though are the types of benefits your company can offer staff. These can also go a long way in making your staff feel valued whilst promoting loyalty and a ‘feel-good’ factor. Many companies offer benefits to their staff but one of the most important are health schemes. They let your staff know you are concerned about their wellbeing, particularly if they offer costs towards routine dental and optical treatment, eye tests and prescription charges or even in-patient and day patient care.
That’s why Exceptional Thinking recommends health policies such as Wellness cover from WPA http://www.wpa.org.uk/keithiliffe/. From as little as £15.00 each your staff can be covered for dental and optical, eye tests, prescription charges, hospital in-patient and day-patient allowances, specialist or second opinion, post hospital recovery bonus, allowance for attending A&E, physiotherapy, Health Screening, Maternity and Paternity and even a confidential stress counselling service.
Exceptional Thinking http://www.exceptionalthinking.co.uk/ provides help and advice to small business owners on their marketing and to people setting up in business.
Monday, 16 November 2009
Changes are afoot...
There's been lots of changes happening at Exceptional Thinking recently and I feel very much like Willy Wonka keeping everything secret so that everything can be revealed at the same time.
But, gradually things are coming together and this is what will be happening in the New Year:
But, gradually things are coming together and this is what will be happening in the New Year:
- We will be launching our brand new website. It's getting close to the point of completion now and we'll be looking to test it shortly. By the way, if you'd like to be one of the testers and get a sneak preview, please email me on helen.dowling@exceptionalthinking.co.uk
- We will also be launching a new members area where members will have much more help with their marketing from us without paying a fortune. They will get access to calls, action plans, marketing audits and 1-2-1 meetings with me to name but a few things. Very excited about this - watch this space!
- We'll also be doing more workshops, more telecalls, and lots more working with people individually to help them get the most out of their marketing.
We've recently taken on Nicky Benton to help us out in addition to Trudi Hayden and I hope by the end of 2010, we'll have another person on board too.
So, there's lots of changes afoot for the year ahead and I'm really excited about sharing the new changes with you. Keep checking back for more...
Wednesday, 11 November 2009
Focus on educating your customers
When customers are not buying, it’s very easy to take it personally, think the whole world’s against you and get very demotivated with the whole thing. And then of course, that makes the situation even worse – because customers can sense a mile off if you’re not happy and even though you desperately want more customers, they don’t want to work with you.
So, what do you do to break out of this circle? Well, an easy way (and often a better way) to think about your marketing is to focus instead on educating your customers. That means, rather than trying to convince them to buy, all you want to do instead is pass on useful tips and information to help people.
The impact of this can be dramatic. Firstly, you start to perceive yourself in a different way. The emphasis is no longer on getting people to buy - you’re now an educator, a teacher in your subject. If you think of yourself in this way, you’ll find that you no longer worry if people don’t buy from you immediately. At least, if nothing else, you’ve been helpful to someone.
The second impact is that the world of marketing suddenly opens its door to you. If you focus on educating your customers, there are a multitude of ways in which you can do this, from writing articles to giving speeches and seminars. These methods will help you to reach more potential customers who will also all perceive you as being an expert in your field – can’t be bad!
Thirdly, customers receive a taster from you of what you can do. If you’re giving a seminar for instance, potential customers get to meet you and get to understand what you can do in a way they wouldn’t otherwise experience. Compare this method for instance to cold calling, where potential customers only get a call explaining what you do and no education at all.
Focusing on educating your customers takes all the pressure off for you and is (in my humble opinion) a far nicer way to do marketing. We have had some tremendous successes from employing this method in my business and clients of ours have received great results too.
But can every business focus on education rather than selling? For instance a customer of mine told me the other day that their business was different – their customers wouldn’t want any education; they either needed the service or they didn’t.
My answer was rubbish – every business can use the focus of education to market their business. No matter what product or service you supply, people always want useful information and tips to help them make a decision.
After all, isn’t that how we buy? Many of us go to the web these days and search for information on a particular product or service before we make a decision to purchase. And if you’re the one providing this useful information for free, who are they more likely to buy from?
Education is a great way to market your business and if you want 50 free ways to promote your business containing many ways to educate your customers, just send me an email – details in the profile.
Exceptional Thinking (http://www.exceptionalthinking.co.uk) provides help and advice to small business owners on their marketing and to people starting up in business. For a copy of our 50 free ways to promote your business, just email me on helen.dowling@exceptionalthinking.co.uk
So, what do you do to break out of this circle? Well, an easy way (and often a better way) to think about your marketing is to focus instead on educating your customers. That means, rather than trying to convince them to buy, all you want to do instead is pass on useful tips and information to help people.
The impact of this can be dramatic. Firstly, you start to perceive yourself in a different way. The emphasis is no longer on getting people to buy - you’re now an educator, a teacher in your subject. If you think of yourself in this way, you’ll find that you no longer worry if people don’t buy from you immediately. At least, if nothing else, you’ve been helpful to someone.
The second impact is that the world of marketing suddenly opens its door to you. If you focus on educating your customers, there are a multitude of ways in which you can do this, from writing articles to giving speeches and seminars. These methods will help you to reach more potential customers who will also all perceive you as being an expert in your field – can’t be bad!
Thirdly, customers receive a taster from you of what you can do. If you’re giving a seminar for instance, potential customers get to meet you and get to understand what you can do in a way they wouldn’t otherwise experience. Compare this method for instance to cold calling, where potential customers only get a call explaining what you do and no education at all.
Focusing on educating your customers takes all the pressure off for you and is (in my humble opinion) a far nicer way to do marketing. We have had some tremendous successes from employing this method in my business and clients of ours have received great results too.
But can every business focus on education rather than selling? For instance a customer of mine told me the other day that their business was different – their customers wouldn’t want any education; they either needed the service or they didn’t.
My answer was rubbish – every business can use the focus of education to market their business. No matter what product or service you supply, people always want useful information and tips to help them make a decision.
After all, isn’t that how we buy? Many of us go to the web these days and search for information on a particular product or service before we make a decision to purchase. And if you’re the one providing this useful information for free, who are they more likely to buy from?
Education is a great way to market your business and if you want 50 free ways to promote your business containing many ways to educate your customers, just send me an email – details in the profile.
Exceptional Thinking (http://www.exceptionalthinking.co.uk) provides help and advice to small business owners on their marketing and to people starting up in business. For a copy of our 50 free ways to promote your business, just email me on helen.dowling@exceptionalthinking.co.uk
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