5 Books for Business

 

Hi, there.

Do you need some encouragement for your business but you’re not sure where to look?

Whether you are a reader or not there are some non-business books which can impact your personal and business life.

This week, I’m compiling a list of website articles to point you in the right direction along with a few books which I think stand out.

So here goes:

‘And this book is an action book.’

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie (first published in 1937, but has since been updated)

 

‘Those who develop the process of thinking can rule themselves.’

How successful people think: Change your thinking, change your life by John C Maxwell.

 

‘And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.’

Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela.

 

Here are some standout book and sources:

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman Business Insider

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield Business Collective

And sources of book lists:

Inc.com

Financial Times

I hope that this inspires you to look for guidance and motivation in new and unexpected places.

Take care

Tricia

p.s #Keepgoing

 

 

4 simple ways to improve your business today!

Hi there.

Do you want to know about some easy ways to enhance your business?

Here are four steps which you can implement straight away:

Set yourself some realistic goals

Are your goals SMART?

Make sure that your objectives are specific. It’s much easier to target a specific area.

Are your goals measurable? For example, do you want to see an increase in sales? Can you measure this by a percentage increase?

Is what you’re hoping for realistic? Is it achievable? Being a small business is difficult enough, without setting yourself unrealistic objectives.

Is what you want to attain relevant? Should it be done? Why does it need to be done?

Time, timing or time-based. Can you achieve what you want in time? Have you set yourself enough time?

Keep an eye on current trends

Keeping an eye on current trends and keeping up to date with your own personal development and training puts you in a stronger position.   I ‘m reminded of this by PR Expert Colette Machado.

Make sure that you get regular feedback from your customers

If you want to offer top notch customer service, start asking your customers what they think you do well and (if you’re feeling brave), what areas need to be improved.

Take a break

It may seem like a bit of a no -brainer but you’d be surprised how easy it is to slip into bad habits like not having lunch and working long hours. You need rest. Your mind and your body will thank you for taking a break or two!  If you don’t believe me read this Huffington Post article.

Well, thanks for reading and I hope that you found this useful.

Take Care,

Tricia

 

 

What is your Startup strategy?

Hello there.

Do you want to start your own business but have no idea where to start?

Do you own a Startup but your progress feels stagnant?

Don’t worry, there’s plenty of help at hand. This week is a quick guide of seven points to consider when planning your strategy.

Ideas

Do you have ideas for new Startups? Do you have ideas about what to do with your current Startup?  Will the idea work? Is it creating a solution? Here’s something to consider about your next project. Paul Graham says,

‘Live in the future and build what seems interesting. Strange as it sounds, that’s the real recipe.’

In How to Get Startup Ideas Graham writes about what he has encountered and how he found solutions.

Entrepreneur.com has The Simplest Test of Whether Your Business Idea is Good or Bad.

Resources

What kind of resources do you need to push your Startup forward?

There’s online help from Start Ups. To help get you begin, you can access 10 Steps to Starting a business.

If you live in Enfield or surrounding areas, Enterprise Enfield runs programmes and offers Help and support through their expert business advisors.

Product

Do you already have a brilliant idea for a product but it’s not complete yet, read You Don’t Need a Finished Product to Launch Your StartUp by Fortune.com

Planning

Have you got a business plan? Do you need to update the one you have?

You can get some ideas from Business.com.

The wonderful advisors at Enterprise Enfield can also help with this, in one to one sessions.

Trends

If you need your business to be in the market and in some respects ahead of the game, then you’ll need help with your brand.  A knowledgeable business coach and marketer who can help to make your business and brand grow is Sara Carter of Sara Carter Business.

Investments (Funding is more appropriate)

For advice about finance and loan, you can speak to someone at Enterprise Enfield

For funding applications, Diana Roy of Up Write is an experienced expert in her field. Follow her on Twitter https://twitter.com/UpWriteUK .

Teamwork

Who is on your team? Are you a one-person crew at the moment?

Steve Jobs knew a thing or two about teams. He knew to have people around him with different skillsets.   While we may have to work on our own, to begin with, when we do have a team, we need to surround ourselves with people who are really good at what they do.

Fast Company has a suggestion for your team in The only 6 People You Need on Your Founding Startup Team.

I hope these seven key factors have been helpful.

If you’ like to know more about me or what I do, find out here.

Remember to follow me on Twitter and like PM Noble Consultancy Services on Facebook.

Thanks for reading.

Take care,

 

Tricia

 

 

 

We have no time…

 

‘WHAT is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?’

Hi, there.

Whichever way you look at it, there never seems to be enough hours in the day. One of my favourite poems called  Leisure by W H Davies, sums up 21st-century living. We don’t have time to enjoy the simple things in life. We sometimes fail to notice life around us.

Well, I can’t add more hours to your day, and if we’re honest, some of us start counting down our days until Friday. So,

Do we really want to count our hours, or do we want our hours to count?

Okay. I am not going to get on a soapbox to try to convince you that you’re living all wrong, I’m just going to throw some ideas out there, and you can decide what to take and what to discard.

I don’t need to tell you that our time should be a balance between work and enjoyable stuff. Of course, this is easier said than done when you work for yourself and you do everything yourself.

Since we can’t increase the time we have, we need to use time management skills.

So, What is Time Management?  According to Mind Tools, it is….

‘Working Smarter to Enhance Productivity.’

What does this mean in practical terms?

In How to Manage Time With 10 Tips That Work, Entrepreneur.com gives some practical techniques which should help.

More useful tips come from Life Hack, with 20 Quick Tips For Better Time Management.

Managing time effectively is not just about work, it all starts from home. The following feature, Home Organization and Time Management Tips from Huffington Post refer to ‘moms,’ but we can all take something away from the systems that have been put in place and business advice given by the guest speaker on the video.

Once we implement all the tips and techniques for saving ourselves some valuable time, what should we do with that time?

Well, I don’t think that this should be spent on work.

Hang out with family or friends more.

Take up an old hobby.

Find a new interest and develop it.

Take long walks and explore open spaces.

Eat better and exercise.

Rest and relax.

I hope that soon, we’ll all be able to

‘..stand beneath the boughs, And stare as long as sheep and cows..’

Take care.

Tricia

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keep Calm!

Hello there.

I’m not sure if you have noticed, but my website is down. BUT fear not! Down is not out! I am getting some expert help with a new site, so hopefully, it won’t be too long before everything is back to normal.

With the temporary absence of a website, I say,

Keep Calm and start blogging

 

Why? Well, there is a lesson to be learnt when things happen unexpectedly and ‘keep calm and…’ seems to fit the bill.

If you’re wondering where this phrase originated from, stay tuned. If you already know the back story bear with me.

So, according to good old Wikipedia, the slogan was one used to motivate and raise the morale of the British public ahead of the World War Two.

The slogan has been around such a long time, why the rise in its use?  Maybe the word austerity has something to do with it.  According to the Guardian,

‘It is the ruling emblem of an era that is increasingly defined by austerity nostalgia.’

 

If you want to wander down memory lane, read the rest of the article in the Guardian.

So, going back to what lesson we can learn. I guess it’s to do with what the British do best. To keep a stiff upper lip!  In my case, I decided that despite having no website, I would keep calm and start blogging.

If you find yourself or your business in a tricky place, keep calm and start blogging. Seriously! Think about it. Writing down what you’re going through could encourage others who are facing the same issues as you. It may also make business decisions a bit clearer.

As SMEs or as part of the self-employed workforce, there are times when we feel as though we are on our own and what we are going through only applies to us.  This is of course not the case and as a couple of the attendees of the Introduction To Blogging Workshop mentioned – blogging is a way of documenting your day to day journey. This is so true!

Blogging can help

• you to record activities within the business
• you to interact with your clients
• document past and future plans

If you need more of a reason to blog, read this.

Do you need help to start or maintain a blog? I write blog articles and website content.

Do you want to learn the basics of blogging? I run workshops. Get in touch. My email is here.

No excuses then!  Keep Calm and Carry on Blogging.

Take care,

Tricia

P.s. Follow PM Noble Consultancy Services on Twitter and like us on Facebook.

 

 

 

How do I get my blog noticed?

Hi there.

Yesterday was my Introduction to Blogging Workshop and the attendees had some great questions for me, which I hope I answered. Today’s blog answers another important question. How do I get my Blog noticed?

All of us want the amazing content that we’ve written to be seen by as many people as possible, to help as many people as possible. Right?

Okay, so since this blog is on WordPress.com, why not start the tips with the support section of WordPress.com. It reads,

Tell people in your social networks about your new post.

Promote your posts across your social networks with WordPress.com’s Publicize feature, which will automatically tell your Twitter followers, Facebook friends, LinkedIn connections, and more as soon as you publish a new post. You can find more ideas in our Social Tools support pages.

Advice from Forbes includes,

Speak your audience’s language

“Sometimes when marketers start the blogging process they start typing words that sound more like a press release than a conversation,” Shah says. “You benefit more (both from an SEO perspective and general engagement) from using terms that resonate with your end customers, so don’t use your blog to impress your high school English teacher–try to impress your customers instead.”

In his 7-step tutorial, Matthew Woodward mentions that you should come up with…

Ideas that you could easily create and can be digestible in less than five minutes

A reoccurring theme that WikiHow is to read other blogs and they say,

Interact with other blogs

This helps create relationships with both the blogger whose blog you’re interacting with and the people who follow that blog.

Hubspot is one of the leading marketing companies and therefore their website is a treasure trove of information.  On their checklists it says,

Make sure your blog is mobile-friendly

It’s been over a year since Google revealed that more people use the search engine on their mobile phones than on desktop. And for all those valuable search queries being done on mobile, Google displays the mobile-friendly results first.

I hope that this has helped you on your blogging journey. Remember I can help with blogging and website content, as well as delivery of blogging workshops. You can check out my website here.

Take care,

Tricia

I would love to connect with you, so why not see what I have been up to on the PM Noble Consultancy Services  Facebook page and follow PM Noble Consultancy Services on Twitter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The people have voted…but what does it all mean?

Hello there.

Last week, we looked at the countdown to the UK General Election.  Now, a week later the people have voted (whether with pencil or pen- there were debates on social media regarding the validity of votes with the use of pen or pencil); and our voices have been heard. So, now we have a hung parliament. What exactly does that mean?

Here is a round- up of the latest news which should throw some light on the whole affair.

From the Guardian –What is a hung parliament and what happens now?

From the Telegraph – What happens when no party wins an election

How does a hung parliament impact UK businesses? Carl Reader explains,

“As you can see, a hung parliament raises far more questions than answers, and in business uncertainty can often lead to a downturn in output. All I can do is advise businesses to keep focused on what they can control, and work within the landscape that they find themselves in. In fact – keep calm, and carry on.”

The full Real Business article can be found here, called, What does a small business mean for SME businesses?

One of the hot topics prior to the election was Brexit. So, what happens now?  The Financial Times looks at how the results will impact Article 50.

The last hung parliament was in 2010 which resulted in a coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats and if you need a reminder of how successful (or unsuccessful) that was, here’s some light reading from The Political Studies Association.

In this period of uncertainty, all we can do as Carl Reader suggests is to keep calm and carry on.

Take care,

Tricia

P.S. If you know that you need help with your business blog, book tickets Here for my Introduction to Blogging workshop on June 16th. See you there!