Six tips for getting organised

Do you regularly run out of time or wonder where the hours have gone?

Andy Boothman has been running his design and branding business Busy as AB for over 25 years. He has managed many hundreds of clients, teams of freelancers and in-house teams all while enjoying a busy family life, enjoying live music gigs, outdoor pursuits and, four years ago, launching DressCode Shirts, a business that required him to learn many new skills and manage production schedules, ethical manufacturing processes, wearable tech, e-commerce and much more.

To keep all these balls in the air, deliver great work and still enjoy life requires great organisational skills so we asked Andy to share his top tips for getting organised.

During the Q&A we quoted Douglas Adams:

“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”

This was misheard by Anne-Marie Miller and resulted in this doodle which has been added to the many works she has produced to illustrate things said at our meetings!

 

Here are Andy's tips:

• Play to your strengths, don't try to do everything yourself and outsource as much as possible of things that are routine or boring.
• Speed is important but don't set unrealistic deadlines. Often we put pressure on ourselves when it doesn't matter to the client. As you get better at something you may get faster but that doesn't mean you should charge less. The value to the client is what's important.
• Tracking systems help in lots of ways:  check actual time v estimated time, check billing. check who does what and who gets paid what, check time spent waiting for clients to do things.
• Doing work on paper can be simpler and easier than using digital tools, especially if the digital tools are shared with a team.
• Planning:
  i) use Friday afternoons to plan for the following week while work is fresh in your head, Checking what work has been done gives you a sense of achievement and clears your head for the weekend. Starting fresh every Monday with a plan already made is a big advantage.
  ii) plan each meeting and leave time between meetings to review, reflect and prepare for the next one. NEVER jump from one meeting to another without a break, you won't be focused and everything will take longer.
  iii) plan your own business development every week or you'll miss opportunities.
• Set firm boundaries and manage clients expectations. Have clear working hours and channels of communication. Do not answer queries outside of these. One demanding client can ruin your relationship with others and clients know when they're being bumped because someone else is shouting louder so make sure you treat everybody, including yourself and your family, fairly.
• Recognise when you're not being productive and don't flog a dead horse. Stop and do something different, take a walk, go for a run, play a game, read, doodle, bake, anything that takes your mind of the work. When you come back to it you'll be much more productive.
• Protect your personal time. We all work for ourselves because it gives us more freedom to do the things we really love so build these things into your schedule and stick to them. They're the most important of all.

Recording of Andy delivering his tips:

https://youtu.be/1MB4wC85PSs

Connect with Andy on LinkedIn  and Twitter

 

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by Ann Hawkins

How to use social media, especially LinkedIn, for B2B marketing

Are you trying to figure out what to do with all the social media advice that gets thrown around?

Dan Ince of BrandWorks Social is in the Ask the Expert chair.

Dan uses his many years experience in marketing consultancy with big name brands to give small businesses access to a more strategic approach to social media. He recently did a Postgraduate Diploma in Digital Marketing with the Institute of Data & Marketing.

Focusing on small service businesses who mainly use LinkedIn, his advice helps us identify the best strategic approach based on what we want to achieve.

Here's what Dan recommends:

Get some clarity

Before diving in and potentially getting overwhelmed, be clear about why you’re using a particular social media platform for your business.

For a small B2B service, it's best to use your activity to create brand awareness and showcase your skills and knowledge rather than try to fill a sales funnel and find leads. Treat it as a long game in building strategic* relationships.

*Strategic means people who may become clients or recommend you - not your peer group or friendship group.

Be really, really, really clear about who you want to reach (potential clients), what their needs are and how you can help them. Write posts with the intention of being useful and engaging for that audience.

Remember that your social media footprint – the things your audience sees – includes your likes and comments on other people’s posts so make sure you don’t slip into becoming irrelevant to your audience by liking posts that will make them unfollow you. (That sympathy like / emoji for your friend with a bad back is best handled in a private message).

Take it slowly and discover a need before you try to sell. If someone doesn’t need what you do, trying to sell to them is a waste of time and will just annoy them.

Be consistent

The tagline “Mr Kipling makes exceedingly good cakes” is 60 years old.
“I'm lovin' it” was first heard on a McDonalds ad in 2003
“Every little helps” has been used by Tesco since 1993
“Creating a buzz for your business” has been Andy Boothman’s tag line for Busy as AB for over 25 years.

You may not have a memorable tag line but you can create consistency by being clear on your values, key messages and in the way your posts look as well as their style and tone.

Good examples of this are:
Dan Ince’s 5 4 Friday posts,
Jo Twiselton’s weekly learning points,
and Adam Driver’s three things videos

*Ring the bell  on LI profiles of people you follow to get notified about posts as they're published.

Don't worry too much if people don't appear to be "engaging" with your posts. 90% of people on LinkedIn never engage with anything but this doesn't mean they're not reading your content. Lots of enquiries come from people you may never have been aware of until they contact you. This is why being consistent matters.

Ensure your LinkedIn profile is up to date and relevant to your audience – if people like your content, they’ll take a look at your profile next. Your tone of voice should reflect who you really are. If someone who has been reading your posts has a call or a meeting with you they shouldn’t discover that your posts give a different impression to you in person.

Don’t get sucked into trends that don’t suit your style or purpose. Selfies are not always a good idea, especially just because everyone else is doing them. In fact, if your content looks and feels the same as everyone else, you won’t stand out.

Advice on "being personal" 

This is the most misunderstood advice on social media. If you're using a platform as part of your marketing strategy to connect with potential clients think carefully about the impression you're giving them. While most people are nosey and people buy from people, sharing personal content is a fine balance between helping you look interesting (hobbies, activities, interests etc.,) and a big red flag to potential clients who may see inconsistency as a liability. If you wouldn’t walk into a meeting with a new client and start the conversation by saying “I’m having a shit day” its probably not a good idea to share that on social media. Also be mindful of the impact your ‘too personal’’  posts may have on other people who are just trying to get through another day in business.

How often to show up

It’s worth remembering that 95% of your target audience aren’t ready to buy what you have to offer at any given time, hence the need to be active on social media frequently but it’s always better to post when you have something interesting to say than scrape something together that’s pretty flimsy just because you’ve been told “it’s good to post three times a week”.

No-one will notice if you don’t post but they will notice if you post drivel!

The best time to post is whenever works for you. There are no rules. Some people get a good response if they post at weekends or in the evening and others stick to Mon-Fri, 9-5.

To get results from social, it’s vital to not only share great content, but also engage with your audience. If someone comments on one of your posts always reply and try to say something more interesting than "thank you". It’s called ‘social’ media for a reason!

Set aside regular time to curate and engage with your network.

Most of all be human, be you and remember, if you look & feel the same as everyone else you’re just average!

===================

This is a big topic and how we each handle social media will vary a lot, depending on what we’re trying to achieve. It can be very time consuming to figure out what works so to find out what’s best for you and your business we recommend contacting Dan who has lots and lots of useful strategies to ensure you get the right results.

Dan Ince
Brand Works Social 
07770 738323

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by Ann Hawkins

Becoming a Pocket Buddha: Living a Life of Acceptance and Silliness

How to surf life and change direction when needed.

And do it without regret or self-recrimination.

Laurence Sarno and Ruth Farenga led a discussion on how to cope when when life is a turmoil of unexpected situations.

Thanks to the creative genius of our members, there are five ways to enjoy this wonderful experience:
1. A doodle from Anne-Marie Miller (Carbon Orange Graphic Design)
2. A video of the opening statement
3. A transcript of the opening statement
4. A Baz Luhrmann Sunscreen treatment by Susie Hinchliffe
5. An awesome animation of Anne-Marie's doodle by Susie Hinchliffe
6. A video and book recommendation from Ruth Farenga (Conscious Leaders)

The video of the ten rules:

https://youtu.be/9pZLp6RLRTY

Laurence's Ten Rules:

Number One
You are enough. This is true for everyone, but our Drive Tribe especially are all exceptional people. You are intelligent, knowledgeable, caring, and generous with your time and emotions. You show up for others.

Number Two

Acceptance – living a life where you can roll with huge and tiny problems with the same balance – starts with loving yourself. All of yourself. Trust an ageing transgender bloke; there’s no way around it. Life starts expanding when you love yourself. If that sounds airy fairy, we’ll get down to the practicalities in the next seven minutes.

Number Three
Forgive yourself.

Number Four

Excuse me, my friend Randy Rainbow wants to tell you this one.
[Laurence puts on Randy, a large, pride-coloured puppet made by Drive member Jo Bryant(The Hands On Company)

[Randy:]
Take joy in your essential ridiculousness. As the great philosopher Tim Minchin said, “At base, we’re just fucking monkeys in shoes”.
How seriously we take our work is ridiculous.
Holding on to terrible things our parents said to us decades ago is ridiculous.
Sex is definitely ridiculous.

Numbers Five, Six and Seven
Be kind.
Be kind.
Be kind.
It pays unlimited rewards.

Number Eight
Life’s too short. Please don’t wait until you’re my age to understand this; do it now.

This theory has a number of corollaries.

Life’s too short to expend energy on things that only upset you. Unless your work demands you stay absolutely current on all major news events, skim the headlines and ignore everything else.

Limit your social media, your time and your emotions to the people you enjoy and the handful of causes you really care about.

Don’t be drawn into other people’s causes. Really, just stop. It’s no good for you.

Life’s too short to worry about what other people think of you. Some people will like you, some won’t. You can’t change that, so let it go.

Unless people are bleeding in the streets, it’s not an emergency. If your kid or your client has done something monumentally stupid in public, do what you can for damage limitation, but believe me, it’s not a crisis.

Harbouring resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. It only hurts you. Let it go.

There are no setbacks, only lessons. If something crap happens, what did you learn from it? This isn’t new age nonsense; it’s the way toward an emotionally balanced life.

The final corollary (and this is Helen Lindop’s favourite), everything is part of the process. If you walk out the house, realise two minutes later you forgot something, go back and get it, that’s not an extra annoying, frustrating step that upsets your day. It’s part of the process of leaving the house.

What could be more ridiculous than expending energy being grumpy about it? Life’s too short.

Final two points

Why meditate? Because if you meditate regularly, your own life story begins to bore you. The stories we tell ourselves about ourselves keep us stuck where we are. Meditation opens your life to new possibilities.

Why practice mindfulness? Because, bluntly, it gets your head out your ass. Another phrase for mindfulness is “do what you’re doing when you’re doing it”. If you’re taking a walk, smell the smells, feel the breeze, be interested in what you see, pay attention to the people you pass. Smile. Connect.

It’s way better than the hamster on the wheel in your head. Lots of my creative ideas come when I’m mindfully walking, taking a shower or doing the washing up.

The Awesome Animation

https://vimeo.com/742822213

Laurence has used meditation and “walking meditation” or mindfulness to help him through years of upheaval in both personal and business life and Ruth studied Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy or Mindfulness-Based Stressed Reduction through Oxford University, spending two years in teacher development.

Ruth’s previous Ask the Expert session on this topic including a short video and reading recommendations can be accessed in our Learning Hub
Other book recommendations:
Tiny Habits: BJ Fogg
Atomic Habits: James Clear

 

Follow Laurence and Ruth on LinkedIn

J Laurence Sarno

Ruth Farenga 

 

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by Ann Hawkins

How to survive the summer in business

Does your business take a nosedive in the summer months?

It can be tricky balancing the demands of clients and family, keeping on top of things, and still making money, not to mention dealing with clients who dump everything on you and disappear for 2 weeks.

Here are some tips for keeping your business running smoothly so you can take a break.

• Manage Stop/Starts
  Over the summer months you might find you have a few long weekends here and there, plus a day trip or an event or two, all on top of your main holiday. Not to mention having to wait for a client to get back to you because they are on the beach this week. This can lead to a stop/start schedule that really slows you down.
  When you do finally get back to work it can be hard to remember what you need to do and find all the right files to pick up where you left off. A good way to manage this is to use the project management tool Asana. I have all my projects set up with their own task list ordered by date, so I can see where I’m at with each of them.
• Scrap To Do Lists and Create Action Lists
  When a to do list is full of statements like Book Holiday, Book car service, your brain has to stop and decide what is the next action required.
  When a to do list - or task list - tells you what the precise next action is, eg Go to Travel Agent, Call Garage, your brain doesn’t have to stop and make a decision. This makes life a whole lot easier and Asana is great at keeping track of every project and every task.
  Often, it's not the task that slows you down, it's all the mental effort leading up to it. So if you can eliminate all the decisions such as precisely what needs to be done, who will do it (even if it's you!) and where to find the tools, files and phone numbers you need then the task is completed faster.
• Set expectations
  Be realistic about what you can fit into the time you have to work this summer, then communicate this to everyone who needs to know. Make sure you leave time to tie up any loose ends before you go away and don't try to cram in client work at the last minute. If a client insists a piece of work absolutely must be done before you go away, stop and think if this is really true. Usually, it can wait.
  You don't want to be frantically working and packing your suitcase at midnight on the day before your holiday!
  Winding down over a period of days is much better for you and stops the likelihood of you getting ill when you switch off suddenly. The same applies to coming back. Try to organise things so that you get back into things gradually instead of switching from off to full speed overnight.
• Get your emails to respond for you
  Don't lose those enquiries that come in while you're away. Here are some ways that email automation can do the work for you:
  • If you have an enquiry form on your website, set an automated email reply for any enquiries that you may receive while you’re away. How to do this will depend on the software you use 'behind' the enquiry form. If the enquiry drops into your email inbox as a standard email then a normal out of office email will take care of this for you. If it goes to your email marketing platform then you'll need to set up an automated email that's triggered when someone fills in your web form.
  • Can you do more with you our out-of-office email? Instead of a simple message explaining that you're away and the date you'll be back, you could also point the reader towards useful information such as your FAQs page so they can sort out simple problems themselves. Or an especially popular blog post. Or you could set up a booking service such as Calendly so they can book an appointment with you when you are back.
  • If you're using Gsuite you can set up automated out of office messages specific to the person who has emailed you. To do this, create a template then automate Gsuite so that when it receives an email from a specific person, the template email is sent automatically. Here's how to set that up - https://support.google.com/a/users/answer/9308990?hl=en
  • If you have a mailing list, why not schedule some emails for the time you are away to keep your leads warm for when you get back?
• Automatically organise your emails
  If the thought of opening your inbox after two weeks away fills you with dread, you can set up folders for each of your clients or projects, then use rules so that your email software automatically files emails from those clients into the correct folders. You will still need to go through all the less important emails eventually, but this will collate the ones you need to action first when you get back. This works in both Outlook and Gsuite.
• Schedule your social media posts
  Obviously, you need to be cautious about over-scheduling on social media, especially with the news changing as fast as it currently does. But you don't want to vanish for a couple of weeks either. So, load a social media scheduling tool such as Buffer with some evergreen, non-controversial posts just to keep yourself on people's radar while you're away. If these posts point them towards subscribing to your mailing list, you could even grow your list while you are sunning yourself. Depending on the platform you use, you could set up your blog to post automatically to social media for you, too.
• Switch off and collate notifications
  Most notifications will go to your phone or your email inbox unless you set them up differently. Here are some ideas:
  • Switch off all of your smart phone notifications so you only look at those apps when you choose to instead of whenever they go ping.
  • You can set up automations so that the information in emails is collated somewhere more manageable than your inbox. For example, you could use Zapier, an app that connects 5,000+ other apps, to add emails with a specific term in the subject line to a row in an Excel spreadsheet. https://zapier.com/apps/excel/integrations/microsoft-outlook/541493/add-row-in-microsoft-excel-for-new-outlook-emails-with-specific-term-in-the-subject-line
  • Messages coming in from multiple social media platforms? You can collate them all in one place with the messaging app Franz 
• Don't stop networking
  Can you carry on networking when you're not in the room? Well, up to a point! Networking is more than just going to events after all, the real magic is in the follow-up. So you can go through the guest list of events you missed and get in touch to discuss what you missed. It's easy to find out who attended Drive meetings in the discussions in our LinkedIn Group so give that a try and build some great connections.
• Keep your pre-holiday feeling all year!
  When you’re preparing to go on holiday, you tie up all the loose ends, you update everyone, delegate everything and nothing is left outstanding.
  If you used this principle ALL THE TIME in your business, you’d always have a relaxed pre-holiday feeling.
  As part of your pre-holiday tidy up you’ll no doubt carry out a project review for everything that’s going on. You’ll note down what the next step is for each project/client so why not send this information to each of your clients? Upon your return they’ll know what the next steps are, what the deadlines are and with whom the action rests.
  This saves a whole world of catch up when you get back.
• Get help! 

If you'd like help with any productivity tips or anything mentioned in this post get in touch with Helen Lindop and check out lots of free resources at Speedy Digital

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by Ann Hawkins

Mindfulness and habits for wellbeing

Are you having trouble concentrating?

We asked Ruth Farenga, founder of Mindful Pathway - now Conscious Leaders, to help us find an easier way through the mind fog by learning how to practice mindfulness and create good habits for wellbeing.

Ruth says, "Mindfulness is developing our awareness so that we can respond differently to thoughts and feelings over time. It allows us to respond instead of reacting - giving us choice and freedom over our behaviour (instead of being dragged around by our thoughts). It comes from developing a practice through structure and habits.

If we're keen to improve wellbeing and productivity, we need to explore how we develop systems that stick so we can work on ourselves each day."

This 2 minute video explains the science that supports the practice of Mindfulness.

This is a summary of the Q&A.

Q. I’m interested to hear about good ways to make Mindfulness more of a regular habit. Even though I've experienced its benefits I still struggle to make it part of my routine.

Ruth Farenga Making it a habit is a BIG DEAL. In terms of habits, we need to understand ourselves and what motivates us. I'm a big fan of James Clear's work - he says 'a goal without a system is just a dream' so if your goal is to improve your wellbeing this will just be a dream without a system in place.  You need to find a system that works for you:

• Is there a set time of day that you could do your meditation practise?
• Are you motivated by others e.g. an accountability buddy?
• What other habits are you doing that you could tag this onto (habit-stacking) e.g. brushing your teeth.

Q. My problem is I tend to turn to it when I really need it rather than making it part of the "normal" days too. I'm a slave to Google Calendar so I find if I remember to schedule it in there, there's a much greater chance of me doing it.

Q. Is creating a mindfulness habit, or practising mindfulness any different during the COVID crisis compared to in more normal times?

Ruth Farenga For many, now is a more anxious time (it was for me at first at least) so that means we may find meditation harder as the mind may wander more. The important thing to know is that this is OKAY! Despite most things you read, Mindfulness and broader meditation practice is NOT about achieving a state of calm. It's more about developing an awareness, kindness and curiosity to what is happening in the present moment.

So more than ever, we may need to let go of achieving a state of calm and be more present with difficult sensations, thoughts, feelings and gently bring our attention back each time the mind wanders. In this way we're building a muscle of awareness.

Q. My favourite time of the day is breakfast so should I associate mindfulness as a second breakfast?

Q. Brilliant idea - seeing it as a treat as opposed to 'yet another thing to do' is a great idea. Could it come just before breakfast so you could reward yourself with breakfast after? This is a great way to create a habit!

Q. Do you have any suggestions for quick and easy ways to squeeze mindfulness into our days, so we can start with a small habit and build on it over time?

We need to decide that this will be a priority for us if we want to see any benefits. Adrenaline is addictive and this makes it harder.  I feel a bit like Nike here but 'just do it'. Try it every day for a month and see how it works for you.

When I first got into Mindfulness I was a SUPER-busy-anxious-stressed-depressed-type so I'm fully convinced that if I can do it, anyone can. Don't wait until you feel like absolute complete shit like I did. I was fully burnt out which wasn't fun.

Q. What made you chose mindfulness over other activities as a way to change when you were feeling burnt out?

Ruth Farenga  The main reason was that I don't like fluffy things so the 'bells and smells' stuff wasn't of interest to me. Also, I was living in Oxford and Oxford University has a whole department for Mindfulness research so I thought, if it's good enough for Oxford, it's good enough for me!

I read about the clinical evidence behind the 8 week Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy or Mindfulness-Based Stressed Reduction course (MBCT or MBSR) so I first read a book then did an 8 week course, then repeated it, then went into teacher training on the side. I had no plan at the time, it just felt right!

A big issue is that all of the Mindfulness community (including those teachers who are unqualified) will use the same research to their advantage but it's really quite specific and lots of us spent 2 years in teacher-development so this is frustrating. This is similar to many disciplines so its always worth checking that any teacher has a Diploma in Mindfulness Teaching and has a supervisor.

Q. Do you have any tips to help children to switch into their observer mode?

Ruth Farenga Anything you can do to model this behaviour is brilliant - you articulate well the observer-mode - this state or mode is something can practise e.g. 'I'm noticing I'm feeling really angry right now' is GREAT. We can encourage this kind of language in our households to build curiosity - as opposed to judgement - into our own thoughts and feelings. There are specific resources for children but I'm very much of the thinking that children are often more mindful that we are - we just beat it out of them through our ways/ education system etc.

Jon Kabat-Zinn (founding father of Western Mindfulness) describes it as 'a wise and affectionate attention'.

Most of us have to learn to give ourselves this kind of affection, curiosity and non-judgement. Our western society is largely set up for judgement and our brains are wired for survival, not happiness so we have to work at this stuff.

Q. If someone wants to start practicing in a group or learn more about this with supervision / coaching, what are the options?

Ruth Farenga My top recommendations for training are - if you're a self-study type person then have a go using this book - Finding Peace in a Frantic World by Mark Williams and Danny Penman. It's gold-dust!

 

Or if you prefer group training check out your local MBCT or MBSR teacher for evidenced-based training.

 

The Conscious Leaders Podcast

Ruth also publishes the Conscious Leaders Podcast with some very exciting guests who are taking particularly radical or innovative action with the way they lead their people and organisations. They share what’s working and the challenges as well as giving a unique insight into their personal journey and philosophy that has emerged.

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by Ann Hawkins

Let's talk about podcasting

Have you met anyone lately who didn't have a podcast?

With the rise of popularity you may be tempted to get into podcasting.

There is a bewildering array of tools to choose from and many other questions to answer!

Berenice Smith, a graphic designer at Hello Lovely Design, helped set up and produce The Full Stop podcast and answered questions about the tech, equipment, design, guests, and more!

The basics - time money and skills!

Ann Hawkins What's the range of skills and the time and financial commitment needed to make a consistently good podcast?

Berenice Smith I work with two other presenters so getting a good mix of speech and tone is important as is listening skills, empathy, knowing the audience, contacts, branding, and social media.

Technically we needed to research the different platforms and what an RSS is and does. It is useful to know about audio editing though apps like Headliner and Podbean make that relatively easy.  A workflow helps as well. The website is set up to do most of the hard work when the episode goes live. It's the organising that takes time - the right guests, getting them and us together (this week we recorded across 3 continents!)

Topics - I was told that most podcasts end at 8 episodes as the material runs dry and time is an issue. We’re at episode 14 and have the rest of the themes planned out for the year and beyond, it’s never-ending but in some areas - even design - that might be tricky so pacing the content and making it useful matter. But it does take a lot of time even with three of us sharing the load - more than we anticipated and as we’ve become more known, those demands are increasing.

Finance - At the moment we ask for donations. For us, there’s a big ethical thing around asking for money from this demographic but as I said earlier, we have plans for Patreon or crowdfunding that I’m happy to talk about elsewhere. We have listed all those costs so we can keep a record like a business so that if we are in the position of seeking funding or changing the model we have this to hand. That’s really important. Prepare for growth from the start.

The key thing for me was going for it. I joined a lot of podcast groups on Facebook and oh my, it was all rather geeky! It's easy to get hung up on tech but if you have a solid plan then try it out and see where it goes. Pod bean is free for about 3 hours I think so that's enough to do some short pieces and take it from there. See what happens!

We expected about 100 listeners given we hadn't considered paying for advertising (we never have) so anything over that has been a bonus and we're way beyond that now but to help one person alone is enough.

We are all podcast listeners too. That was important, we know what others do and are getting an ear for what works and what doesn't!

Q. How far ahead are you planning typically?

Berenice Smith We typically block in events and some, like Mother's Day, Christmas etc require extra care but sometime we have to shuffle around because of a newsworthy item so we try to have some flex. We tend to have the next three episodes in mind and one canned in case we need it - often that's from a previous podcast so we get a break. Some shuffles happen because we're getting guests from across different time zones too!

Is a podcast right for your business?

Q. Can you tell us how you decided that a podcast was right for your project/business and was likely to give you a return on that work?

Berenice Smith We started the podcast after we drew up a proposal for the BBC Rachel Bland award. It was during that research that we realised that there wasn’t a podcast for our niche. So much like a business plan really

Probably the thing to say here is that this is a podcast about involuntary childlessness so there isn’t a direct link to my business, more to me. Although I work with a very wide demographic I also work with men and women who want an empathic designer in this area so it’s been a benefit I’ve not realised before. It’s allowed people to get to know me (something that Ann Hawkins said in the 6 Steps Programme was what would make someone chose between me or another designer is down to personality so it's been an indirect benefit!)

This is the podcast I co-present so you can get a feel for what we've done.

THEFULLSTOPPOD.COM

However,  I’m hoping to set up a creative podcast at some point soon (if anyone is interested!)

Helen Lindop What are the benefits of a podcast compared to say a YouTube channel, or blog?

Berenice Smith I’ve not really experimented with YouTube but I would say it’s about our comfort and that of guests. We record on Zoom but it’s amazing how sitting in your home knowing that there won’t be any video can make a safe space. We do have a blog and a newsletter. We send out a newsletter to our subscribers when the episode goes up and then a few days later we go public and then share some of the newsletter content. Our open stat averages 70% and the clicks around 60%.

Q. Do you do the editing and uploading yourselves or outsource it?

Berenice Smith We do it all ourselves. There’s loads of software from Garageband to Adobe Audition, and sites that can do this such as Headliner (which we use on the free version for audiograms). We’re really lucky that Michael (one of the co-presenters) loves the audio editing and has had media training, I’m happy with social media, running the website and seeking out opportunities to increase our reach and Sarah is a great writer for our blog so we all bring varied skills.

Attracting listeners

Q. How to you get subscribers/listeners?

Berenice Smith Being social. We've currently got 2.8k listeners over all time and we're fortunate that our community is incredibly committed. Presenters and guests are important. We started with published authors who did well with social media to bring in traffic and we intersperse guests like Bibi Lynch and Susan Muir (look up Suzy and the Simple Man, she’s incredible) with stories from new names, less established to give balance and humanity.

Spotify is in beta at the moment for podcasts so that took a bit of time to sort out, but we're doing well on Apple, and Podbean is great. We've recently launched on Stitcher so we're always checking the platforms and asking our listeners. We've recently added in a community news and a toolkit of resources.

There's a new Google podcasts app too.

It's really hard for us to get reviews in this field as people have the right to privacy but encouraging reviews especially on Apple, really bumps it up along with all the benefit that reviews bring.

Standing out in the crowd

Q. I'm thinking of starting a podcast about being a copywriter - but there are already a lot of people doing it; is it worth creating a podcast with so many discussing similar topics, and if yes how could it stand out?

Berenice Smith I think research really important - there are lots of podcasts that cross over so we do have others with similar aims (the more the better to be honest when it comes to mental health but it’s good to have a niche). For example we found that there were very few men talking about mental health and grief so our male presenter is very important. The other female presenter is a coach and training to be a counsellor so she brings a lot of ethics and fantastic questions.

We also engage with other podcasts so we’re appearing on a podcast in USA very shortly and the person who founded that has just recorded an episode with us. The collaboration really works if you can find the subtle differences.  Also, if you decided to collaborate with others, the team dynamic has been important for us so whilst your subject matter might be similar, maybe there’s a collaboration that makes it unique.

Branding

Branding is really important too - I've seen so many podcasts with covers that are illegible, so our brand is very strong and personal and it has reach. A good website and all those important design rules matter.

Q. I hadn't thought about the importance of having a good mix of presenters, great point.

Q. Did you have an exact idea about what you wanted it to be like? e.g. is it scripted?

Berenice Smith We really have no script! We do script the intro, middle part and ending so it’s topped and tailed by website and social media though and we always research the guests.

As for the what we wanted to be like - we had key words - empathy, funny, sweary and human. We’ve been told that the biggest draw is us as team and that we do laugh. That’s so important with difficult subjects that can been uncomfortable and we’re all about building bridges so it’s for all (hence the name not really alluding to the subject matter). But we do edit so that each episode usually started with one of us digressing or laughing to set the tone. We’ve had tears - especially over one specific one on mental health - which has increased our audience.

Q. That's interesting. I tried without a script and waffled too much

Berenice Smith I have had to record a few pieces on my own and oh yes... I'm terrible. As we're presenting as a team we tend to have hand signals for waffle alerts or we'll ping a message to each other but I empathise completely!

Who are ideal guests?

Q. What are you looking for in a guest?

Berenice Smith I love that you love being a guest, me too! Oddly it's not about the tech - guests get worried about not having a recording studio but in the main, a pair of headphones and a quiet room is fine.

Someone who is relaxed, not over promoting and has something valuable to share, is engaged with us already as a follower and has listened to the podcast. There’s a lot of the ethos of Drive about how we approach the social media so it’s all about supportiveness not sales. Subtle :D

Find our more about Berenice at Hello Lovely Design and on Twitter @hihellolovely

Find out more about The Full Stop Podcast at TheFullStopPod and on Twitter @TheFullStop1

Berenice is also a finalist in the Digital Women Awards and has been selected as one of the 40 women to watch!

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by Ann Hawkins

Email marketing doesn't have to be scary!

Many small businesses are wary of email marketing but it is still one of the most effective ways of increasing sales.

How do you keep in touch with previous customers?

How do you attract new customers?

How do you turn a connection into a paying client?

These are all things that can easily be achieved with the right email marketing system.

However, choosing the right platform, avoiding spamming, GDPR, wrangling automation, linking to CRMs are all issues that cause concern so we asked Helen Lindop to answer questions from our members.

Helen is a CRM and email marketing consultant for small businesses who shares lots of information and free newsletter templates at www.helenlindop.com

This is a transcript of a live Q&A

Choosing the right platform

Q. You mentioned you've lost patience with MailChimp. What's your current preferred platform?

Helen Lindop It really depends on your needs, there isn't a one size fits all. A good alternative for people who are on the free Mailchimp plan is Mailerlite.

Q.  Would be interested in your recommendation/pros/cons of MailChimp vs HubSpot.

Helen Lindop It really depends on what you want to achieve, I'd always start with your goals and then find a tool to help you reach those. Hubspot does a lot more than just email marketing and can be too complicated for many smaller businesses. I would say that you'd look at Hubspot when you'd outgrown a platform like Mailchimp. That said, I reckon there are much better platforms out there than Mailchimp.

Q.  What advantages does Mailerlite have over Mail Chimp?

Helen Lindop The advantage is greatest for people just starting out. Both offer free plans, but with the Mailchimp free plan you can only have one list (known as audiences in Mailchimp) and you can't have automations with more than one step in them (e.g. you can automatically send out a free PDF, but you can't send a sequence of emails). Also, many people find the Mailchimp interface clunky and confusing, Mailerlite is simpler to get around.

Q.  I moved over to Mailerlite from MailChimp and I'd say it's easier to use and there's lots of video tutorials. Also easier to split into groups etc

Q. When choosing an email/crm system for your business what are the key things you should take into consideration?

Helen Lindop Always start with your goals - I have some clients who just want to stay on people's radar, so only need a simple newsletter-style monthly email and one client who has an ecommerce store with an email sequence when someone buys, a shopping cart abandonment sequence and a product page abandonment sequence. So there are very different situations.

In terms of CRM, some businesses want a customer database with a history of their communication with them, plus reminder to follow up. Others need that and a full sales pipeline plus more. So it depends very much on what you need.

Let me know if you need any more specific info!

Helen Lindop I give my other top picks in this post: The best Email Marketing Platforms for Small Businesses 2020

Moving platforms

Helen Lindop It's usually not as scary to move as people think. Moving the data over is often straightforward if you tag properly, things like automations and integrations take longer. How to move to a new email markeitng service 

Q. Where's the best place to find out *how* to automate? These sites aren't always intuitive. It was my biggest barrier to getting it done

Helen Lindop You can automate such a huge range of things now that it's hard to find your way around all the info unless you decide what you want to automate first. For many businesses, following up with people who have shown an interest in your business or bought before is the best place to start automating because it's a really effective way of making more sales. And is so easily forgotten.

Q. When you talk about automating marketing, is it possible that if someone downloads a pdf from your website or social media platform, that this can be linked back to your CRM system and trigger a series of appropriate follow up to move potential buyers further through the funnel? Hope that makes sense

Helen Lindop Yes, that's marketing automation! 😁 Most email marketing platforms will do this now, although the level of complexity/flexibility varies a lot. As does the price.

When is enough enough?

Q. How many emails should one send, over what period of time and is there a benefit to leaving time in between?

Helen Lindop It really depends on your goals and your audience. I always suggest starting with a frequency that you can maintain consistently (both in terms of being able to create enough quality content for your mailings, and to physically send the emails), get some data and then work from there. If you increase the frequency and lots of people unsubscribe, that may be a reason to drop it again - although if the people who unsubscribe aren't buyers then that may be OK.

Visuals and text

Q. I just downloaded your email templates yesterday. Very helpful thank you and I'm sure I will use them. For other emails though, is there any reason why a newsletter couldn't be purely visuals (other than titles/links say)?

Helen Lindop  The problem is that many Gmail users don't download the images, so never see them. So your emails always need to 'work' whether the images are visible or not. Also check they work in plain text as well as HTML.

Who should be on the list?

Q. If you've never done this before, what's the first step to getting people to sign up in the first place? Second question, once you have sign ups what do you do? Start an excel file? Jump straight into a CRM platform? Can you give a beginners guide to the process when starting from scratch.

Helen Lindop There are many ways of getting people to sign up including having some kind or discount or freebie when they subscribe. It's important that you make it clear they are also going to receive marketing emails from you when you do this, though. There are lots of tips about how to do this on my blog.

I would always use an email marketing or marketing automation platform to manage this for you rather than Excel.  Partly because it's just easier that way and the starter level tools are inexpensive or even free (Mailerlite and Hubspot CRM have free plans). But also because it's bad practice to email in bulk from say Gmail or Outlook. But as I said above, I don't recommend jumping into a platform until you've decided what you need - what are your business goals? What do you need these tools to be able to do to support those? What do they need to integrate with (e.g. do they need to integrate with your website, shopping cart etc).

7 Reasons why a CRM is better than and Excel Spreadsheet. 

Q. Would you recommend unsubscribing people who aren't engaged?

Helen Lindop It's generally a good idea to clean up your lists because a) otherwise you may be paying for subscribers who never open your emails and b) the platforms prefer accounts to have subscribers that are engaged. But you need to be careful because whether someone has opened an email or not isn't always tracked 100% accurately. A better guide is whether someone has clicked a link in your email. So it's better to delete those people who haven't clicked in 6 months rather than those who haven't opened in 6 months.

Q. This can depend on the type of information and the type of subscriber. I've got people who've been on my list for more than 10 years who pop up now and then to say they like reading my posts, and even though they've never bought anything ask me not to take them off  the list.

Q. I have a client who currently uses a WordPress plugin to send out their monthly e-newsletter. I've been trying to convince them to switch to a different platform for years. They have a lot of "role" email addresses on their subscription list - info@, admin@ etc.

Helen Lindop Those role email addresses aren't good news. They tend to have a lower open rate than named email addresses and so it will affect their stats. Some platforms go as far as not allowing them (e.g. Aweber) so I'd check this before signing them up. Off the top of my head I don't know one that is totally happy with these. I think I'd try to get them to reduce these if possible, although I know it's not easy.

Common mistakes

1) Not doing email marketing because some expert says it's dead and they should be using (insert current bright shiny tool) instead. (Note, this expert often doesn't know anything about email marketing!).

2) Managing your customer database from an email inbox/ post-it notes/fridge door/ memory.

3) Focusing on marketing to strangers when you stand a much better chance of selling to existing customers or 'warm' people who know you.

4) Deleting all your data because of GDPR.

There are lots more great tips from Helen on her blog at www.helenlindop.com and she is planning a beginners course on this topic so keep in touch by signing up to her list and on Twitter @HelenLindop 

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by Ann Hawkins

Websites, developers and designers

Is there a foolproof way to get a website built?

There's a lot of confusion about the process of building a website and where developers, designers, copywriters and other professionals fit in.

We asked Graphic Designer and Front End Developer Richard Slade to answer questions about the best way to get a great website built.

Richard has over 20 years experience in the design industry working in the public, private and charity sectors with some of the top names in design. He produces highly creative work for brands and organisations across the UK and his work covers a wide range of disciplines, including web, print and corporate identity. His portfolio can be viewed at sladedesign.co.uk

This is a transcript of a live Q&A.

Does everybody need a website?

Q. Why would I want a website? It would seem that people can find me ok via LinkedIn.

Richard Slade The difference between any platform like LinkedIn or Facebook and your own website is that you own your website and you have no control over the other platforms. They could be changed or taken down with no notice.

If you're selling a product you might use a platform like Etsy and they'll take a cut of your profits and suggest buyers look at your competitors whereas if you could have a bespoke shop to fit your needs on your own website.

When you post on LinkedIn or any other platform they change their terms /layout /processes and privacy with no reference to you. You could lose all your articles, posts, pictures and connections. If you own your website with a blog and a mailing list, its your property.

Should new businesses start with a simple site?

Helen Lindop I have some experience of people new-ish to business who want to leap in with a website that is more complex than I think they realise. E.g. someone who has a main offering but also wants to make an online course and they want a booking service and payment options... and so on. I know it depends on the individual, but do you recommend starting with a small, simple website then add features as they grow? Or does that risk expensive re-designs later on?

Richard Slade I would always recommend, you can't go wrong with using a CMS or Content Management System, as this can adapt and grow as the business grows with no cost implications for migrating sites, or changing platforms if the existing one doesn't have all features.

Recommended Content Management Systems

A Content Management System is software that helps users create, manage, and modify content on their own website without the need for specialised technical knowledge.

Helen Lindop What sort of CMS would you recommend?

Richard Slade The most widely used are Wordpress, Joomla and Drupal.

Wikipedia cite WordPress as being used by more than 60 million websites including 33% of the top 10 million global websites.

Its also an open source platform, which means that millions of people worldwide maintain it but no-one owns it so this makes it very easy to find people who do even the most complex sites and you're not going to get stuck if your developer disappears or if they use bespoke code that means you have to pay for every change.

This is a chart of the most popular Content Management Systems

Wix, SquareSpace, Wordpress.com (not Wordpress.org which is different) all fall within the online builder category. This means that all the content (images and text) is stored on the providers platform. If they decide to change their platform, as in free to chargeable, or go into liquidation or get bought out, your site would be affected.

The manual, software and CMS categories ensure you retain ownership and copyright forever.

Own your Domain Name

Having your own domain name, website and email addresses will give you and your business a more professional look. You should always own these yourself, irrespective of who builds and hosts your website. Owning your domain name also helps to protect copyrights and trademarks, increase brand awareness, and search engine positioning.

Domain names can be purchased as part of a package with Wix, SquareSpace, Wordpress.com etc or independently.

Domain names can be purchased at any time. Even if all you have is an idea you can secure the domain name and let it sit dormant for years.

What's the process?

Ann Hawkins If someone decides to have a site built, what comes first? Designer / developer / copywriter? Who manages the whole thing?

Richard Slade With new builds, for me, the process starts much further up. Knowing what the site is for, what the owner expects it to do, and what results they want.  Then comes a discussion about what you want people to do when they land on your site. This will help to inform the choice of platform and design concept.  The process comes first then the layout. If there is any complex interactivity like shops, event listings, forums etc. its important to know where they fit into how the site will be used.

Once all that is determined I'd do a simple wire frame - this is a very simple drawing of  what goes where in a very basic layout and shows text blocks, images, buttons etc.

This is a simple example of a wireframe.

My advice is to find a designer based on their previous work and whether the sites they showcase are kept up-to-date. All the sites I list as my work, I check in with regularly as they directly reflect my reputation. Plus I'm a little OCD about stuff which helps too.

Before work starts on building the site, its a good idea to have all the copy and images ready so that everything can be planned out to a realistic timetable.

===================

This is huge topic and there are many more aspects to discuss. If you have any questions you can get in touch with Richard at www.sladedesign.co.uk or on Twitter @SladeDesign

 

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by Ann Hawkins

How to have a healthy relationship with money

Does thinking about money make you anxious, or is is just a tool that gives you choices?

Business owners often transfer their feelings about their own money to their business and this can cause lots of problems, so we asked Money Coach, Dennis Harhalakis, to answer questions on "How to have a healthy relationship with money"

What is money coaching?

Dennis Harhalakis I spent many years working in the finance industry and I noticed that most of the people I worked with were pretty bad at managing their money.
The whole industry is set up to take your money and do things with it, but there was very little understanding about what enabled some people to have healthy saving and spending habits, whereas others - and there is no relation to income or social standing - struggled with everything money related.
In the late 90's there was a book called the Millionaire Next Door and this analysed the behaviour of people that built wealth over their lifetimes. They identified 4 positive financial behaviours:
1. Frugality - spending less than you earn
2. Confidence - financial literacy and learning about how the system works
3. Responsibility - taking ownership of your financial outcomes
4. Social indifference - not being influenced by what other people are buying and what society tells you should have.
Understanding the emotional aspects of your relationship with money is the key to developing these behaviours.
It's hard to budget if thinking about money causes anxiety.
It's hard to be indifferent to the opinions of others if your self-esteem is low.
So, money coaching helps people to recognise and understand those patterns so you can make the changes you want.

Using money as a measure of success

Q. There are many ways to define and measure success but in business, money is the usual measure, why is this?

Dennis Harhalakis Money is the simplest measure society has for success. As hierarchical mammals our brains are always looking out to see how we compare to others. It's a core survival issue and it's totally subconscious.

Q. Some people are easily able to separate how they deal with business money and how they deal with their own. So its obviously not money per se that's the issue but having a different relationship to ownership. Is that right?

Dennis Harhalakis Yes correct. Our relationship with our own money is entirely emotional. Money is a core survival need and so dealing with it triggers our core survival processes and responses. That's why it's so emotional. For small business owners, the problem is often that there is no neat separation between personal money and business money. So, personal issues with money will leak over into the business side. This goes beyond simple competencies, and extends to issues of self worth which can then limit your ability to drive your business forward.

What we learn from our parents

Q. In your experience, what's the most common thing that gets in the way of having a healthy relationship with money?

Dennis Harhalakis The biggest cause of unhealthy relationships with money is bad messaging during childhood. Depending on how the adults behaved, money becomes associated with anxiety, shame, conflict. In households where money wasn't talked about it's really hard to develop a positive relationship. The sad thing is, children tend to internalise this and we find ourselves ashamed that we cannot manage our finances properly.

Q. I've found it's not too hard to understand where my beliefs about wealth and money come from but it's much harder to change them - what do you advise?

Dennis Harhalakis We often don't understand how and why we feel the way we do, but we blame ourselves. As a society we don't talk about these feelings and we are embarrassed. If I had to give you one message only, it's that we all have money issues and it's perfectly normal. Unless your parents were incredibly enlightened, you will have some negative patterns.

The path to developing positive emotions, patterns and behaviour around money 

1. Understand your money story
2. Moderate extreme behaviour
3. Change negative patterns and scripts.
This is really, really hard to do on your own because you brain will shy away from things/thoughts that make is feel uncomfortable.
Understanding your neurobiology - how the brain works - how the brain handles money - is probably the key to all of this.
The aim is develop greater consciousness in your behaviour around money. What is driving those emotions, what is driving your behaviour.
95% of our behaviour is subconscious and driven by deeply ingrained processes that keep our species alive for millions of years.
The good news is that it's possible to change all these lifelong habits and beliefs and there are incredible benefits to it.

Technology and money

Q. Technology is changing the way we handle money and that this is something that looks set to grow significantly in the future. Do you see technology improving peoples relationship with money?

Dennis Harhalakis Technology will help us to deal with the complexity of managing our finances - I love Monzo and Money Dashboard - but the emotional dynamics of our relationship can't be changed by technology per se. If technology can be used to support financial literacy and budgeting, then yes... it is extremely useful. But there is also a downside. When spending becomes frictionless, we spend more.

Q. Is that because we cannot manage/control our own desires or that we just don't follow the figures?

Dennis Harhalakis We are wired for instant gratification. As we evolved, if we saw something we needed, we just took it (and usually ate it). We don't need to do that now, but the urge is still there. So, when the process of instant gratification becomes frictionless, it becomes really hard to control.

Q. What about pay forward systems where you have a self imposed limit to your spend?

Dennis Harhalakis All friction is good..... and 'control' mechanisms will vary from person to person. It's about choice architecture and designing the process that will achieve the outcome you desire. Neurologically speaking, handing over cash versus waving  a card or phone are completely different processes.

Resources and help

Q. So many books/resources/experts on relationships with money rely on new age ideas like manifesting - can you recommend any that are based on things like psychology and solid financial principles instead?

Dennis Harhalakis The resources page on my website has a good list of useful books and I suggest you have a quick look at those that seem interesting. If I had to pick 1 it would probably be Wired for Wealth and I would also highly recommend Money Magic by Deborah Price. She is the founder of the Money Coaching Institute and has been doing amazing work for over 20 years. I trained with her.
https://cambridgemoneycoaching.uk/resources-2/

Dennis Harhalakis is the founder of Cambridge Money Coaching and a Certified Money Coach (CMC)®.  Money Coaching deals with the unconscious patterns, beliefs and behaviours around money that we all have.  Understanding these behaviours and patterns is the key to achieving true financial independence and success.  This understanding is particularly important when facing the challenges of a sudden change in circumstances.

With over 30 years’ experience in financial services, Dennis offers clear, practical guidance on how to address the common problems associated with money choices, patterns, and the day-to-day management of money issues.  He holds an Investment Advice Diploma from the Chartered Institute of Securities and Investments (CISI).

Dennis believes strongly in supporting financial literacy and helping young people prepare for the challenges of today’s world.  He has been a Business Adviser with Youth Enterprise and worked with Cambridge schools as a mentor and guide to careers in Finance.

 

 

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by Ann Hawkins

How to close more sales with email marketing

Are you worried that email marketing comes across as automated spam?

Do you know how to manage your mailing list so that your messages arrive almost by magic to solve your customers problems at just the right time?

Helen Lindop helps small businesses set up lists that make your customers feel special, not just an anonymous part of your sales and marketing machine.

This is a transcript of a live Q&A.

Helen Lindop  I'm not going to teach you sales tips because I'm not a sales expert. But one thing I see a lot is people assuming that email marketing is just another marketing channel (and an older, less-sexy-than-the-latest-social-media-platform one) and therefore just one more marketing job they don't have time for.

But I'd like to give you a different perspective. Think of your other marketing channels as ways of reaching out to new people and starting off a relationship with them. Email marketing asks them to go a step further - usually offering a gift of some kind in exchange for an email address - and that means it's about following up, carrying on with the relationship-building, then closing the sale.

If you've ever been frustrated by not selling as much as you'd like on social media, it's very possible that you're missing this piece of your marketing strategy, or at least leaning too far towards reaching out to new people and not putting enough focus on following up and closing. This is also good for people who feel a bit uncomfortable about selling... because an email does that bit for you - if you do it right.

How to avoid looking like spam

Helen Lindop There are lots of ways to avoid the dreaded spam label: First make sure you're following the rules - GDPR fills a lot of people with terror but it's not so daunting for small businesses and a lot of it is just transparency and courtesy anyway.

Then, send info that people actually want to read - help, educate or entertain them. Send something they'll look forward to reading.

Check your stats e.g. if your unsubscribe rate is high, drop the frequency a bit and see if it improves. Test your headlines to see if they have spammy words in them - many email marketing platforms have a headline checker.

How you gather email addresses matters too. If they already know and like you from social media or a presentation you ran then you already have a relationship with them before they subscribe. Then you need to develop that.

Don't let GDPR put you off

Helen Lindop For any micro biz owners nervous about GDPR, this might be reassuring https://ico.org.uk/.../assessment-for-small-business.../

How well do you comply with data protection law: an assessment for small business owners and sole traders

Q. What's the most effective way to get replies? Is it header/content/CTA? or a combo?  I'm sure it depends on what the relationship I've built with them is, and where they're at in terms of sharing info with me and when we can meet. Ideally I want to meet up and chat as that's when my 'sales' get done :)

Helen Lindop If you want to move them towards interacting with you I'd encourage that right from when they subscribe. So in the welcome email, ask them a question like 'What's your top challenge with x? Hit the reply button and tell me, I promise to reply'. That way they know you're a real human being and will respond. Often people assume email marketing is a one way communication so they need a bit of encouraging. Then write your emails as if you're writing to one individual, make it feel really personal. Similar to the way you approach social media, nothing like a dry newsletter.

How to get started building a list

Helen Lindop Start with a goal - what do you want to achieve with it? E.g. more design clients? I know that sounds really obvious but it's surprising how much this varies. E.g. I had one client who was an accountant who didn't have any space for new clients so the only purpose of her list was to stop people forgetting she existed when she did need a new client!

Q. That's pretty much my goal - attract more clients and remind existing ones I'm still here. However, I don't feel comfortable adding existing clients to a mailing list. Obviously I'd ask for their permission, but "can I add you to my newsletter list" just sounds lame.

Helen Lindop I think 'newsletter' is a very boring word with undertones of 'I'm going to try to flog you stuff from time to time'. Can you think of a way of giving it a brand all of its own that it makes it sound like a product in its own right, e.g. The Design Times. You can still be transparent about what's in it on your landing page.

Q. OK, so I've created a landing page and sign up form... how best to get people to actually sign up? (Is it a good idea to have a sample amount of content or similar?) Then publicise the new landing page on social? What's the protocol for inviting existing clients to sign up - send an email inviting them to do so, or be more subtle, just adding a link to it in my email footer etc.

Helen Lindop I think you need to sell it a bit - it's fine to put it in your footer but in itself I'm not sure you'll get many subscriptions from that. With clients you speak to I'd just drop it into conversation. A landing page with good 'what's in it for me' copy is a great idea, I'd just treat it like a product you'd sell...except it's free. In a way it is 'a sale' because they are paying for it with their email address.

There are loads of ways of promoting your list - a really effective one is to do some kind of event that's closely related to The Design Times - online or off - and mention it there (more on that here https://helenlindop.com/.../how-to-build-your-mailing.../ ). You can do a straightforward tweet or social media update with a link telling people why they should sign up, I put mine in related blog posts, too.

How to build your mailing list using online workshops

Using the right platform

Q. Should all bulk emailing be done via a dedicated platform and not from a personal email address and why?

Helen Lindop Yes, definitely do it from an email marketing platform because to bulk mail from your own email address looks spammy. And it's WAY easier to manage it from a platform. Plus there are all kinds of data security issues with bulk email from your own address.

Q. What kind of numbers of people would you consider bulk email Helen?

Helen Lindop You can get email plans that start from free (Mailerlite for example) so if you have any intention of building a list I'd start right now with one subscriber. That's not to say free is best, it depends what your goals are - you might be better with one of the paid platforms. But it's just not worth the risk and hassle of emailing even 10 people with your personal email.

What if no-body buys anything?

Helen Lindop If you find yourself with a list of people who love your content but don't buy, then check things like are you making offers frequently enough? Are they hidden in a load of text that people skim read over? Are they the right offers for that audience? Are they at the right stage of the buying process?

Some people are so scared of being spammy that they never really sell anything in their emails.

Q. Helen Lindop Is this a good subtle way to do business or a fear that needs overcoming??!

Helen Lindop Often it is a fear that needs overcoming and it's hard to get over it unless you do it. Both from a point of view that it gives you confidence that you can do email marketing without people hating you (you totally can), and you've then got some stats to work with.

It's subtle in one way in that you don't need to sell face-to-face, but you still need to be confident in presenting offers in emails.

Q. How does it work to segment a list so that people who are interested in one thing don't get offers for things they're not interested in?

Helen Lindop Most email marketing platforms allow you to tag subscribers, so you could tag someone who subscribed at your event with #event and someone who has shown an interest in online training with #onlinetraining. Or even both, because most allow you to have multiple tags. You can apply tags manually e.g. if you import subscribers who signed up on a sheet at a live event, or you can set it up that subscribers that join your list from a specific landing page are tagged #event, for example. This means that you can send emails about events to those people who are most interested in events. That's a really simple example, you can also tag people based on what they bought in your online store, whether they've clicked a specific link on your site, if they've abandoned your shopping cart and many more.

In terms of platform, Convertkit and Active Campaign are great for doing this, Aweber is a good lower priced solution that's maybe a bit less powerful but still good, Mailerlite is not that strong but does have some features, Mailchimp is infuriatingly clunky. *other opinions are available!

One significant change with GDPR for email marketing is that you can no longer say 'download my freebie' then subscribe them to a mailing list and sell them stuff. You either have to a) be transparent on the landing page that they'll download the freebie and be added your mailing list where they can expect to receive x, y and z or b) let them download the freebie then get their consent to add them to your mailing list after. Many people got so scared by this they either stopped giving away freebies or added a load of confusing tick-boxes to their landing pages. Just wanted to mention this as it is still possible to use lead magnets, and they can still be very effective.

If you are stuck for what to write to your subscribers I have 9 free templates you can copy, paste and fill in the gaps here (yes that's my freebie!)

Newsletter and awesome freebies

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by Ann Hawkins

How to structure and plan your business story

How to tell your business story

Telling your business story might feel daunting. Where do you start? What should you include? How will people respond? What if they don't respond? Will it feel like a school assignment?

We asked Rachel Extance, who helps businesses find their stories and tell them effectively, to be our Ask The Expert and tell us how to plan out our stories, what structure to use and how to share them. She covered what to do if you're faced with blank page syndrome, how to tell stories if you think your business is 'boring' and how to not feel awkward about sharing stories.

This is a write-up of a conversation between our members.

What are your business stories?

Q. Is it best to have one overall story for your business then break that down over a series of different blog posts, tweets, Facebook posts etc? Or maybe have mini-stories that slot into the main one?

Rachel Extance Your business will have lots of different stories:

• Your main story is the one about how you fit in to your perfect customer’s life. What difference do you make? How is their world improved by you being a part of it?
• You have your origin story. How did your business come about?
• You have your personal/founder story. This may be similar to your origin story (if you started a business because you were made redundant for example or you have always had a talent for making something) or it may be different. How did you become an accountant? Or come to be in a different city/country?
• Then you have other stories:
• Case studies
• Stories about your products
• Stories which help people understand how what you do can help them
• Stories about what is happening in your business
• Stories about things you’re doing which indirectly relate to your business
  • networking events you have been to
  • a place you have been
  • anything which gives people an insight into your world and helps them get to know you

It’s important that your stories have the key components of a story (see next section).

So those are some examples of the stories you can tell. And you can see from those two lists that some of those stories are ones which can be told time and time again. They will be on your website, you can share them on social media, you can tell them to people when you meet.

Others will have a shorter shelf life. It might be something which is relevant for a day or a week.

Ideally, you want a mix of stories so you always have something you can share to help people coming across you for the first time to get to know you and how you can help them, and for people who are already in your network to enjoy and have a chat with you about.

Q. Thank you, really helpful! How do you fit those into some kind of strategy/framework or whatever so that eg. you don't bore people by telling your origin story too much or you end up telling lots of smaller ones that don't hang together that well?

Rachel Extance Think about where and how you are going to share your stories. If you're using Twitter for instance, you can share the same thing quite a lot without people getting bored of it.

Also think about all the different things you can pull out of your story to share. So if you were to take your origin story you could have a post which says: "How I overcame ... to ...."

Then: "Why I....."

Another could be: "I was really struggling with...."

If your post has sub-headings, these can all be individual tweets.

Also quote yourself. Look for lines which stand out in your story and use them as tweets.

You can probably get at least 5 different posts out of one story (I've seen people talk about 10x or more).

Spread them out and share them on different days. So one month put it out on Tuesday am, the next month Thursday lunchtime, next time Saturday evening.

If you are blogging/recording regularly so you have new material to share, shout about it. Your followers don't want to miss it. You can say it's new and put it out every day for a week at different times.

On Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, things have a longer shelf life. But there's nothing wrong with recycling a piece of content round again after a break.

If in doubt, have a look at the timeline of a brand or person whose work you really enjoy and who posts regularly. See if you can spot how often they put out the same post with a different message.

Reposting also gives you the opportunity to experiment with different messages, timings and imagery.

Plan your posts out over 3 months. You'll find you don't need to repeat that often.

What is a story?

Rachel Extance A story has some key ingredients: a beginning, a middle, and an end.

It also needs:
Characters (the who)
Action (what, where, how, why). The ‘why’ is important. People need to know the motivation and want to know what happens next or they will stop reading/listening/watching.
A resolution (how did it end?)

It needs to be relatable and it needs to create an emotional connection.

Posting a photo of a cup of coffee or what you ate for breakfast (no matter how pretty it looks) is not, in my opinion, a story.
However, it can become a story if you can talk about your favourite cafe and why you love going there and that the owner, Michael, makes the best carrot cake in town. Or that you are drinking coffee while working on a new chapter of your book/planning a workshop/developing a new service and tell people a little about your process and when they can expect to be able to see the result. This kind of story can be helpful for keeping you accountable. If you’ve told people there will be a book, there needs to be a book by x date. People will want to know the latest stories about how the book is coming along.

It’s vital that your stories resonate with your audience. What’s your story giving them? Is it information? (Stories are a great teaching tool.) Is it entertainment? Does it help them get to know you and remind them how much they enjoy working with you?

Q. Really helpful. I forget that stories can be really short. I keep thinking I need to write a 1000 word blog post as a minimum!

Rachel Extance stories can be very short.

Just to add to this, the 'end' doesn't have to be 'the end'. (You also don't have to start at the beginning). If you think about a soap opera, there are lots of stories running at the same time. Some are begun and resolved in an episode, some run over several episodes. And it's all one long story with people coming and going for years. 'The end' just needs to be a means of rounding off your story so people aren't left hanging, wondering if there's more to come or what happened to a character.

Q. Got it! It's like Doctor Who... you've got the overall story that's run for over 50 years, the story of each incarnation of the Doctor, the story of each series and the story of each episode. All nested together. Then I guess there's the story of the alien who only shows up for 5 minutes. 🤣 (And the guy who gets sucked out of an air lock).

Rachel Extance You get bonus points for relating it all to Doctor Who :-) Yes, exactly that.

How to tell your business story without feeling awkward about it

Q. Sometimes I'm a bit too close to my story and can't tell whether it's going to resonate or just feel a bit cheesy or self-congratulatory. Any tips for writing stories that are 'ooh' rather than 'urgh'?

Rachel Extance There is nothing wrong with telling people a story about success.

If you don’t tell your stories, no-one will ever know. People can’t know that you are brilliant at writing emails which achieve a higher than average open-rate, or that you won a client an award, or that you’re feeling pleased because you figured something out that’s been bugging you for ages, unless you share it.

Sharing success stories is important in influencing people’s buying decisions. People often don’t approach you until they have made that decision to buy. Seeing good reviews of you and stories from you about work you have done with others helps them make up their mind.

How often do you get talking to someone you haven’t seen for a while and it turns out they don’t have a clue what you do for a living? They might be a potential customer, or they might know someone else who is.

Humans are wired for stories. We love hearing them and reading them. Why else do we spend a stupid amount of time on social media when we all absolutely have better things to do with our time? We want stories. What are our friends up to? A clip from our favourite show, a bit of nostalgia, we cannot get enough of stories.

When you're sharing a story, give people reading/listening/watching something they can use. You’ve just successfully done something for a client: this tells other people looking to do the same thing that you can help them. You could also share a tip or two which your audience can benefit from.

Tell people the difference it has made to you or your client. Figuring out this issue means you can now take Friday off and you’re going to go shopping. Or it’s enabled a client to make x new orders this week.

For example, “I made £5000 this week" sounds boastful. But try: “I'm celebrating the launch of my new product line which I’ve been working on for the past 6 months. We knew people really needed help with x so we developed y. I held a launch party at z with so-and-so (or went live on Facebook) and was really nervous but then the orders came flooding in and we sold £5,000! This is my best launch so far and I’m really grateful to companies x, y, and z who helped me make it happen”

You’ve shown people there was a process. You didn’t just make £5,000, you worked hard for it. You listened to customers and met a need. You stepped out of your comfort zone and did a launch. You didn’t just do it by yourself, you had others to help you.

[pullquote]Humans are wired for stories. We love hearing them and reading them. Why else do we spend a stupid amount of time on social media when we all absolutely have better things to do with our time? We want stories.[/pullquote]

Selling with stories

Q. What about the balance between telling stories and selling? Do you have any tips for selling using a story so it feels authentic but not pushy?

Rachel Extance I have struggled with 'selling' since I started out. But over time I've reconciled myself with it and I believe we're all selling all the time.

I mentioned earlier that people have often made up their mind before you hear from them. This is the Zero Moment of Truth. Telling stories helps people get to know you and understand what you're offering, whether they are in the market for your products and services or not.

I'm personally not a fan of stories which start with some shock, horror click bait intro. But that's probably because I'm a cynic.

I do believe that every business has stories to tell. We're all human. And that telling our stories creates connections and helps us come to mind when people are looking for someone who does what we do.

I should say that people who advise you to write 'shock horror click bait intros' do so because the stats show that they work.

What stories can 'boring' businesses tell?

Q. Any tips for those people who feel their business subject is just too dull to have any juicy stories? (People have told me this as I've been trying to plan out their email newsletters with them - so this is their opinion rather than mine!)

Rachel Extance If you have started a business then it can't be that boring. It must also have a market, otherwise you're not going to make any money from it, therefore people must be interested in it.

How does water supply impact on your customers? What does it enable them to do?

What are the benefits of someone doing your books for you?

Another way to approach it, if you're a service industry, is to talk about the interesting jobs/business your clients have. How does your SAAS product enable these cool kids to keep doing amazing things?

Being authentic when you have a challenging story to tell

Q. Challenging stories. I don't want my back story to isolate people but it's a big part of my narrative and impossible to skip over lightly, is there a tone or way to share that is inclusive.

Q.  That's a really tough balance. I know social media experts say you should be authentic and you'll attract the right people, but what if you go a bit too far and start putting off the right people? Also, where do you draw the line between authentic and just a bit too personal?

Rachel Extance There is no right or wrong answer to this. Your story is important and part of who you are. As with talking to people face to face, how much you share and where you share is down to you. You don't have to give people details you don't want to give them. You have a right to a personal life and to keep that personal. Equally, sharing your story can help others who have similar experiences. Being authentic just means being you. It doesn't mean getting into conversations you feel uncomfortable with.

What if you're shy about telling stories?

Q. Any tips for the reluctant clients that know they should be doing these activities but are too 'shy' to commit?

Rachel Extance This is one of the many situations in which I'm not sure school did us a favour!

We feel there are rules.

We feel we're going to be judged.

We're scared about how permanent it is.

People are going to look at us.

But:

The chances of you doing a Gerald Ratner are incredibly small. Really. What could you possibly do that's going to sink your business?

My guide on this is always: would you be happy to see this splashed across the front page of a newspaper?

Put yourself in someone else's shoes and consider whether they will see something in what you have written or recorded that they are so appalled by that they will boycott your business or ring up a newsdesk.

Sometimes people do make innocent mistakes, it's true. But when it happens it's newsworthy because it is very rare, particularly if they are working with a professional.

Q. I think often online 'failure' for a small business means that it doesn't resonate and nobody reads to the end or shares it. You need to be pretty big to have a viral disaster. So the worst that can usually happen is that nobody sees it.

Rachel Extance Blogging/video/podcasting, you name it, builds over time. If you give up after the first one, or 3 or 10, it is never going to be a success for you.

Keep putting your newsletter out there. Keep writing your blog. Keep recording video, whatever it is. This article about formats for storytelling has good advice on this.

Then make sure you share it. So many people (including me) create things and then don't have time to share them. Draw up a posting schedule and put aside some time to load up your posts.

People might not see it the first time or they might not have time to read it. Scheduling it several times increases the chances of it reaching a wider audience.

If you have a clear idea of who your customer is and you know why you have created the piece of content with their needs in mind, then it will resonate.

How to overcome blank page syndrome

Q. I often have email marketing clients who say they don't have time to do the writing and can't think what to write anyway. I know one answer is to ask you (Rachel Extance) to do it for them, but I'm sure there are some easy ways to get over 'blank page syndrome' and produce some stories fast - do you have any tips?

Sometimes I think it's just that they have so much they could say and don't know how to extract a good, concise story from it. Often we've been taught a business or academic style of writing and felt we haven't written stories since primary school.

[pullquote]Blogging/video/podcasting, you name it, builds over time. If you give up after the first one, or 3 or 10, it is never going to be a success for you.[/pullquote]

Q. I have a few design clients that wonder why a blog page on their website for the same reasons, the 'blank page' fear and what have they got to say. I know from working with them that they have a story to tell but that extra push seems to be confidence?

Rachel Extance 1. Write! I know this sounds crazy but seriously, write. Whatever comes into your head. It doesn't matter. No-one is looking. You can scrunch the piece of paper up and throw it in the bin. Or have a file on your computer marked "drafts do not publish". It doesn't matter but write.

This is about to move into content marketing but it helps with telling stories because you need to kickstart your brain into being happy to put things out into the world.

2. Start with a list of the most common questions you get asked. If nobody's asked you yet, then look online for what people ask about. Try

• Answer the public
• Google search
• Looking at chapters in books (they're not going to be there if people aren't interested in knowing)
• Amazon listings all have reviews and a place where people ask questions. What did they like? What did they want to know about? What was missing?
• You can do the same thing with online course reviews.

3. Make a list of questions, you could start with 3, and write a detailed answer to them.

• how does someone book you?
• what information do you need to know from them?
• how does x service benefit them?

You now have three things which you know are helpful to prospective customers which you can share.

Another simple thing to do is imagine you are having a conversation with someone in the pub. You can do this with a friend/colleague/relative and record it on your phone. Otter.ai is a handy dictation tool. Tell them a story. Then read through the transcription and turn it into a blog post or re-record it as a piece to camera or audio.

How to structure your story

Q. How is the best way to structure a story when there’s so much to say?

Rachel Extance Another good question. Try to make it as simple as you can.

Can you tell it in 12 words or less?

This makes you focus on the key details. What did you put first, before you ran out of words?

Next, break it into 3 sections: beginning, middle, end.

Start with the key details you identified at the beginning. Focus on your audience. What do they want to know? Why are they going to keep listening/reading? Is that detail you feel is important actually relevant?

If it helps, give yourself a word limit for each bit. 20 words for the beginning, 100 words for the middle, 50 words for the end, for example.

Or try writing it as a tweet, 280 characters.

Depending on where you are telling your story, you can then go back again and expand the middle. You might need to explain a key concept. Or put in a quote. Or share an analogy which will help your audience understand.

But you might well find that while you could say a lot more, you might not need to. Or that you can break down the big thing you wanted to talk about into bite sized things which makes it more accessible.

How far ahead do you plan your stories?

Q. How far in advance do you plan? or advise your clients to plan? Weeks, months, quarters?? Having a plan means the output is so much better than constantly winging it IMO.

Rachel Extance I would plan at least 3 months ahead. This enables you to create your own story arc which could go something like:

Origin story
Founder story
Product spotlight
Customer case study
An event
Product spotlight
How we helped...
A cause we support or supplier we want to showcase
Product spotlight
Member of staff we want to champion
Something new we're working on
A look back over the last 3 months/a look forward to the next quarter
Product spotlight

You're able to present a well-rounded view of your business, talking about different aspects of it, and highlight your core offerings. This ties in to Helen's question above about selling.

You then know what you need to create and when you need to create it by. Having a content plan means you're unlikely to hit Friday and say: "Oh we didn't put a newsletter out or post this week's blog/video"

I would then look at what's coming up each month. Does it still fit? Has something else happened? Perhaps you're up for an award you didn't know about at the start of the quarter so you want to slot that in.

You also need to give yourself enough time to create your content, including pictures/video, get sign off from anyone if need be, do SEO, and leave enough time to create social media posts.

You can also batch content creation. Set a specific time every week or month aside when you create 2 or 4 articles/videos and create the social media posts. If you know what your plan is, it's very easy to do this.

Would you like to know more? Get in touch with Rachel Extance at The Story Cave or talk to her on Twitter.

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by Rachel Extance

What's the point of networking?

For some people the whole point of networking is to find new customers.

Unfortunately this has given networking a really bad name and many people avoid networking events because they don't want to be sold to.

And that's a shame because building a great network is one of the most useful things that anyone in business can do.

Ann Hawkins, founder of Drive the Network is well known for her views that the point of networking is not about selling but building great relationships, as she explains in this Q&A.

Q. I read so many comments like 'I hate networking' in small business Facebook groups, then when they expand on that it turns out they mean the type where people hand you a business card, bore you senseless with what they do, then move on to the next person. Which isn't networking. Can you explain what GOOD networking is? And that it can actually be fun?

Ann Hawkins Everyone has a different idea of "good" networking. For me it's so much more than finding out what people do in their business. I want to know if I like someone, if I can trust them, and if they'll be useful to other people in my network. The last thing I'm thinking about is if I can sell my services to them.  It's definitely not giving them an elevator pitch (which I don't have) or "binning" them if they have no need of my services! Even for an introvert, finding people you really like and would like to meet again can be HUGE fun!

Find what you enjoy

Q. Can you give us your thoughts on the different styles of networking, from the very structured ones where you have to bring in a number of leads every week to the ones where there's no pressure at all. Is one better than the other or is it more about personality?

Ann Hawkins It's partly about personality: some people like ritual and knowing exactly what to expect from every meeting, and some businesses do very well from the sort of groups where only one of each type of business is allowed and members have to pass sales leads to each other. However, many small B2B businesses struggle to give 'real' leads consistently. The pressure to provide them and the judgement people face in their groups based on the of number and apparent monetary value of leads means people sometimes make them up and that's a waste of everyone's time. I also find the thought of meeting exactly the same people week after week and being forced to pass business to people I don't like or trust, quite bizarre. I believe in recommending someone who is a good fit rather than someone who happens to be “in my group”.

On-line or Face to Face?

Q. Is face-to-face networking more effective than online?

Ann Hawkins I don't believe it is. I have great relationships with people I've never met face to face and there are people I hate being in the same room with and spend all my time avoiding. It's much easier to avoid boring people on-line and also to get a more complete view of someone's character by looking at how they interact with others and what their interests are outside of business.

The other advantage of on-line networking is that while you're talking to one person, several hundred or even thousands can be observing, learning, and finding out who you are, what you're like, and how you behave in all sorts of circumstances. Its the most effective way I know of building a reputation among people you've never met and don't even know exist. I've got lots of work amd referrals from people all over the world who enjoy the content I share on-line and the way I help people to connect

Q. I know lots of people are nervous about showing up to networking events for the first time - do you have any tips?

Don't walk into a room full of strangers!

Ann Hawkins These are all great tips! But there's really no need for anyone to walk into a room full of strangers these days. I'm amazed by people who just pitch up, don't know what sort of event it is or who anybody is, and sometimes don’t even recognise the speaker – there’s really no excuse for that! Going round the room asking everyone what they do is really bad when a few minutes research beforehand will give you enough information to make a real impact. Imagine walking up to a stranger and saying. "I've really been looking forward to meeting you. Your website / Twitter / LinkedIn / Facebook Page looks great!" Or better still, connect with them on-line first so you can have a real conversation when you meet!

Q. The behaviour some people display at a networking meeting feels like they park their normal self in the carpark and think it's OK the be this, in your face, sales obsessed, inhuman idiot for the period of the meeting, than get back in their car and resume a 'normal' life – its weird.

Ann Hawkins I think that's partly because some networking organisations "train" people to deliver a 60 second pitch and "work the room" so they literally do put their normal self aside and go in with no curiosity about people except to find out if they're a prospect, and if they're not to just ignore them and move on.

Q. What's a good way to follow up after, I'm amazed at how few people do this.

Ann Hawkins  Sending a blanket cheesy email that just repeats your elevator pitch or trying to set up a meeting is definitely NOT the way to follow up. That's kind of why I set up Drive as it is. I don't believe its ever necessary to go to an event without knowing who you're going to meet, check them out and have something to say to them when you get there. Same with the follow up. Connecting on line and continuing the conversation like two human beings is easy. I believe every event organiser, especially for paid events, has an obligation to set this up. I've been doing this for people who attend my events since 2009. It's not hard.

Of course it relies on people actually booking and not doing all this last minute "I'll try to get there" or "I might come" stuff. If you want to get the best out of any event, make a commitment and do your homework before you turn up. You and everyone else will enjoy the conversations more and its much easier to follow up.

Q. Networking will very rarely have instant results and I believe that's the major reason a lot of people shy away from it. We live in a world of quick fixes and that doesn't work in networking. It's a long game. How long would you tell a networking newbie to attend a group or meeting before making a judgement call on whether the group is for them?

Ann Hawkins I don't think you need to go to a meeting at all to decide if its the style you like. If you're a ritual person or intent on making sales, there are tried and tested styles for that. If you're open minded, curious and want to learn, you'd choose a different style. If a networking group has an active forum or on-line community it adds so much to the networking experience and removes the barriers of geography, or other other things that stop people joining in. You don't have to be "in the room" to build a great network.

Actually building a trusted network takes a long time. You need to feel comfortable with people, know their values, and how good a fit they’d be with others before recommending them and then get some feedback about their work before you know if they really trustworthy. Building that level of trust takes a long time and consistent action from everybody.

Q. That's my frustration when people say, “I've never got any clients from networking”. It usually means they've showed up to a few events but not done anything beyond that.

Ann Hawkins They've also missed the point that although the people in the room may never hire them, if they put in the work and help other people, every one of those people knows at least 150 other people who may become their clients. (Dunbar's Number)

Networking for Impact

There are two ways to create impact when we're networking:

We want people to remember us for the right reasons, and although its corny and much used, this Maya Angelou saying sums that up beautifully:

The second aspect of creating impact is in the usefulness of your network to others. If you go out just to find people you can sell to, you're missing 99% of the reasons for building a network. The value is in the impact it has on others when you introduce people to each other - people who can help or are just fun, and people who know other people and are happy to keep building that extended network. When you become the "go to person" for others to find who they need, that's the biggest impact of all.

Talking to people with real curiosity about who they are and not just what they do means you can be of most help to both them and the rest of your network.

 

 

You can see Ann talking to Martyn Sibley about Networking for Impact on The Martyn Sibley Show.

Read The Art of Subtle Networking 

Find more from Ann at Inspiring Entrepreneurs on Twitter @AnnHawkins on LinkedIn

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by Ann Hawkins