December 31, 2010 by 10 Comments

7 Things That Changed My Life This Year

7 Things That Changed My Life This Year

So it’s that time of year again folks – The snow has rolled in and rolled out again and a new year is round the corner. I can’t believe it was a year ago I wrote my round up post for 2009! For those of you who missed it, I write a summary post each year on the things that changed my life for the better. I hope that in amongst the points, there will be some that you can use to improve your own life for the better, after all this blog is about you guys, not me.

Here’s 2010 coming up.

1) Stephen Coveys Book - 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (aff link)
This book has been around for years and I’ve had it on my ‘to read’ list for some time now. I finally got around to reading it this month and I have to say, of all the business books I’ve read (and I read quite a lot), this one is awesome – a real ‘lightbulb moment’ read. In fact, I felt it was so important, that after reading it, I emailed my staff and offered to buy a copy personally for anyone who wanted to read it. I can’t possibly summarise the whole thing here, but if building your business and relationships is important to you then don’t question it, buy it today (It’s like £7 so don’t hang around) and let me know how you get on.

2). YourJobsBoard - http://www.yourjobsboard.co.uk/exeter/
As a bit of a serial entrepreneur I came up with a new business venture this year which aims to change the face of local recruitment. The search engines are going local – You’ll have probably noticed that Google Places is far more prominent (thats the map and pinpoints) and smart phones can geo-locate you (find out where you are) easily in an attempt to offer up content that’s relevant to your area. For this reason, we have built a truly local Jobsite for our town of Exeter. This aims to take on the faceless national jobsites and provide good quality content for the Exeter area. It focuses on the strong links we have with institutions in the area including Exeter University, Exeter Council, Connexions and all the local recruiters and companies looking to advertise their jobs cost effectively. If you’re based in Exeter then make sure you get your jobs on the site asap as it’s currently free for companies to post. Charities will always be able to post their jobs for free.

3). Sandler Training
There is always room to improve. The top athletes in the world have coaches so there should be no pride lost in business coaching of any kind. This year we made the jump and I enrolled on the Sandler Sales Management course. Having started my business at the age of 19 and 11 years on finding myself in charge of more than 10 staff, I’ll openly admit that management was not my strong point. I recognised that, so wanted to better myself. I’m now working with a guy called Andy McCreadie in Exeter on a monthly basis, specifically in sales training and sales management. I’ve learnt so much in the few months I’ve been working with Andy, most noticeably about finding the right clients, qualifying, saying no, shortening our sales cycle and understanding that behaviours drive targets, not the other way around. Sandler offer sales training and management courses all over the world. If you are starting a business yourself or even a few years down the line then I can thoroughly recommend the Sandler guys. If you’re in the Westcountry then let me know if you’re interested in meeting Andy and I’ll set it up for you.

4). My MacBook Pro
I can’t say much more than I’ll never go back to a non apple laptop. Nuff Said! Check out their online store for the latest products.

5). Inbound Marketing Practices
I started practicing true ‘Inbound Marketing’ properly this year, having been dabbling the year before. If you’re unfamiliar with the term it’s essentially where you give value away in return for peoples details (which become leads). You entice people to you by proving your credibility and authority. This year we launched two pieces of fantastic Inbound Marketing Collateral. The first was our social media survey. After 6 or so months of surveying businesses, we collated and crunched the data we had and spent quite a bit of money on producing a glossy 32 page booklet displaying the results which we have been giving away freely in both hard copy format to local businesses and online to anyone who wishes to view the information. We also produced a tool for creating a free social media policy you can give to your staff. We simply ask for details of people who download it in return for the document which we brand up with their logo and company details. Since launching this just a few weeks ago and without much marketing, we’ve had over 50 companies use the policy – all bona fide leads for my business. Think what you can give away today in order to build leads.

6). Travelling on Trains rather than Driving
I used to drive everywhere. I love driving. It’s my favourite. However, when I realised how much time I was spending in a car and not able to work, it frightened me. I now travel by train whenever possible and if its at a weekend then the 1st class upgrade is well worth it at anywhere between £5 and £20 extra a journey. This might sound obvious for the train crew already but Im sure there are other people out there with businesses not realising quite how much you can do if you turn to train travel.

7). Lizz
Ok so I included Lizz last year (my girlfriend for those of you who don’t know) but she is so important to my life that I need to include her again. All I’ll say this year, is that once again, I recognised on a few occasions how important it is to have a strong support network behind you when the chips are down. I had a great year in 2010 but we all have off days and sometimes it can get quite stressful. When that happens to me, Lizz is always there for me. Thank you Lizz x

Now Your Thoughts

  • So what changed your life this year?
  • Who and what made an impact on your 2010?

Filed Under: The Entrepreneur Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
December 10, 2010 by 2 Comments

Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood

Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood

A week or so ago Scott Stratten (unmarketing) posted the following on Twitter:

“If you believe business is built on relationships, make building them your business”

BAM – How to sum up everything I think about business in one 140 char sentence – Thanks Scott :)

This was also timely as I’ve recently been reading Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (aff link) and one of the habits has really struck a cord with me – Habit 5. ‘Seek first to understand, then to be understood’. I want to break down Stephen’s points and tell you why this is so important in business. In fact, it’s not important, it’s essential and when you understand this concept you’ll notice this trait in all the most successful people, even the hardest nosed business women and men.

Why should this be so important to you? Because most people do completely the opposite. Ask yourself now, honestly, what you do when talking to a colleague, or client, or someone at a networking event? Do you listen with the intent to reply or the intent to understand? Do you wait for others to finish speaking, just so you can get your point in, or do you listen to and try to understand the other person, from their point of view?

Most people live in their own world, they don’t want to understand other people’s world.

How does this relate back to Scott’s point at the beginning of this article? Well if relationships are the key then this skill is key to building them. If you barge in thinking you know best, without giving thought to the other person, I can pretty much guarantee that you’ll need to brush up on your relationship building skills. Perhaps you should question this now?

Just remember as Covey says, that when you seek to understand other people first, you show them that you care. Everyone wants to be loved right? Everyone wants to be understood. If you don’t develop this skill guess what happens – the person you’re conversing with will always be thinking, ‘nothing else matters as this person talking to me doesn’t understand me’ – they will never take your point on board.

I’ll leave you with one more thought from the same chapter in Covey’s book. The key to influence is to be influenced by others (i.e. being open to others influencing you) – for some people I’d expect this to be difficult concept to deal with. The truth is that you need to be totally comfortable with yourself in order to adopt and hone this skill.

Carl Rogers a famous psychologist said this:
“Lay aside your own views to enter another’s world without prejudice – this is only possible by people who are  so secure in themselves that they will not get lost in the other persons world”

Remember that understanding someone else doesn’t mean you agree with them but that you accept they are people of worth, you value them or you wouldn’t have spent time listening to them. You accept that they see their world differently and that their world has legitimacy. You’re saying; I accept you, I understand you – you matter to me

If relationship building is important to you and your business how do you take to this concept? Do you evaluate things from the other person’s context or do you always look from your own frame of reference? Something perhaps to ponder on over the coming festive season. Oh and go and buy 7 Habit’s (aff link) – It’s really changed my life this year.

Now Your Thoughts

  • Is this skill of listening with the intent to understand something you do yourself? Does it work for you if so?
  • Can you think of times where people have not listened to you – just talked at you or even worse, pretended to listen only to steam roller in afterwards – how did that make you feel?

Filed Under: Building & Managing Relationships Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,