I put this moment…here.

I’ve never been one to start a new piece of work the moment I finish one. Just as an actor will take a few moments to reset his character and mood for a few minutes after presenting an intense audition monologue, I will take a few … minutes/hours/cups of tea/phone calls/Facebook chats/magazines/biscuits … to reset my ability to write in a new client’s corporate voice. That way, my copy for an adventure park doesn’t contain random stern phrases better suited to a police campaign.

It also means, to be honest, that I am indulging my love of being my own boss, and having a break when I want to because I can.

This morning, though, was different. It started with the regular meeting of my local business network group. It’s always fun and informative, but today it seemed to have extra energy. It might have been the sunshine that streamed into the village café where we meet, it might have been something to do with the spiritual alignment of the stars*, but whatever it was I came away with at least four strong feature ideas, a splendid tip for a new service I could add to my own offering (watch this space) and the possibility of some new clients.

So when I got back here, instead of the usual assault on the kettle and larder I came straight to the keyboard and started bashing out feature pitches and business approaches. So a two-hour meeting led straight into two more hours of very productive work before I even thought about lunch.

How do you handle your workload, as a sole trader or SME owner manager? Are you head down, no nonsense, smile-less slog all day, one job after another – or do you punctuate your day with definite breaks between tasks?

* well, it MIGHT, you don’t KNOW, do you?

The Feng Shui of Technology

My office, when I entered it five minutes ago, was totally quiet. The heating’s off, and I’ve yet to turn the kettle on – there’s no one else here and no traffic passes by. Planet Rock Radio is curled limply in my speakers awaiting its cue.

The situation has made me realise that the single noisiest item in my working life had been my desktop computer. Not necessarily noisy in decibel terms, but in its incessancy. The kind of noise that you only notice when it stops.

It broke, you see. There was a stunned period of panic as my electronic lifeblood simply stopped – but years of conditioning had meant that everything vital had been backed up so that period was short. Then there was a little flurry of panic as a couple of imminent deadlines flapped insistently around my ears. That was eased by an emergency dash to John Lewis with an imperious: “Bring me your cheapest laptop, my man!” (Of course the cheapest was out of stock, as was the next cheapest, so in fact I ended up spending £50 more than I’d intended.)

But anyway, the noise. The old PC had been struggling for some time, bless it. Overloaded with the entire family’s gubbins, quite apart from the (virtually) dusty piles of my old creativity and the neater contemporary folders of the paying work that was one of my numerous excuses for the (virtual) dust on the files of dreams.

So it had had the technological equivalent of a heart attack in its sleep. It just didn’t wake up one morning. And it’s only now that I realise how laboured were its dying breaths, how intrusive its mechanical heartbeat. But I feel no sadness at its passing – simply relief at the quiet, and the blessed uncluttered reality of a new hard drive that’s there just for me.

All there is on the laptop – this calm, neat, quietly watchful receptacle of my thoughts, commercial and creative alike – is recently ordered folders. One folder for each part of my spring-cleaned mind. No family admin, school sick notes from seven years ago, letters of complaint about shoddy workmanship, daft pictures collected from the internet, random shopping lists and weekend plans.

Now – I can plan my days, my waking hours, without getting lost in the clutter of my old disorganisation. It’s like moving in to a new home, alone, and furnishing it one piece at a time. Each piece in its place. Each place capable of growing its charge at its own pace.

Space for my creativity to breathe.

Quietly.

Maturing Nicely

…just like cheese, wine or a (very) select few rock stars.

This post is a completely self-indulgent one to let you know, if you hadn’t found it already, that I have been tinkering with another blog. If you’re fed up or confused with the huge range and diverse nature of health and fitness ‘facts’ that are increasingly available, you might like to have a quick look. It’s aimed at those of us who would like to remain (or become) fit and healthy just so that we can enjoy our lives. Turn your back on health scares, fitness fads and trendy diets – come and join in with those who are beginning to enjoy the idea of fitness without the faff, and health without the hooha. Maturing Nicely

How a single customer can help you market to thousands

You may have seen this picture:

If you’re local to me, you’ll probably have seen the sign itself. It was outside my local pub, on the first day of that ridiculous petrol shortage shenanigans. The pub’s called The Wheel, it’s in Naphill, and it’s a happy, busy, village pub that has become in recent years – thanks to the hard work, intelligence and general loveliness* of its landlords – the centre of the community, as all pubs should be.

Thing is, who but you and your neighbours knows of your local pub, generally speaking? Well, within hours of the landlords posting this photograph – just one example of their sense of humour – on Facebook, thousands upon thousands of people all over the country knows of mine!

That’s the power of viral marketing, a phenomenon made possible by social networking. It’s simple. I’m a customer of the pub, and have ‘liked’ its Facebook page, so I saw the photograph when it was posted. It made me laugh, so I ‘shared’ it by putting it up on my own Facebook page. Within a very short time, about 30 of my own friends had also shared it on their own pages. As the day went on, friends of those friends did the same thing – and I was only one of the pub’s customers who had that little bit of contagious enthusiasm going on.

The pub also tweeted (mentioned on Twitter) a link to the picture on the Facebook page, which gave them another layer of likers and sharers. Then lots of us on Twitter (what can I say, I’m a social media junkie) retweeted the link, and then others retweeted the link that we’d retweeted – including a Member of the European Parliament with 16,000 followers! – and so it went on.

Then the joke and the picture and the internet phenomenon of the PUB ITSELF were mentioned on BBC Radio Four – and that doesn’t happen to many local businesses.

So happy to have been a part of it.
Is it an idea that you might be able to apply in some way to your own business? Doesn’t have to be the same, but it might spark something off…

* (that’s got to be worth a pint…)

Networking needn’t mean Facebook

I was chatting to a friend recently; he runs his own business offering computer advice and services (often rescue services!) to individuals and other small businesses. As with many of us, he finds his workflow is generally either feast or famine: he is run ragged for weeks with barely a moment to call his own, and then spends the next fortnight wondering where on earth his next crust is coming from.

Speaking for myself, I quite enjoy the quiet days. It’s like a sort of guilty holiday, and my house enjoys the attention. I’m lucky enough to have confirmed regular work from a few sources, and I also know that a concerted effort on the marketing front will bring in more.

He picked me up on this and asked what sort of marketing he could do for himself, as he was reluctant to spend the hundreds, perhaps thousands necessary to take out advertising space in professional journals and consumer publications – particularly when he didn’t know which titles would bring in results for him.

It’s a common sticking point for us sole traders – what to say, when to say it and to whom. I mentioned that he might try advertising locally to start with – his local newspaper would certainly be cheaper than a national computing magazine, and allow him to experiment with the wording without making expensive mistakes.

I also suggested joining a local business networking club. They’re everywhere if you look. Some are big and sharp and charge a membership fee; some are small and quiet and meet in people’s living rooms on a rota basis. All of them at the very least get sole traders out of their bubble for a few hours, and at their best can lead to lucrative and lasting business relationships.

The group to which I belong has been welcomed by one small business in particular – the coffee shop in the village hall. It’s where we meet every month, and we down a fair few coffees, teas and bacon rolls between us.

HOW many hours?

My goal as a freelance is to do at least one billable piece of work – journalism or copywriting – daily, Monday to Friday. That’s the earning priority, the thing that drives every business no matter the industry.

Then there’s the ‘investment portfolio’. The projects, usually fiction, that represent an investment of time, which will one day translate into paying work, whether it’s simply billable or passive royalties. It’s these acts of self-indulgence, wrapped up in their mantle of earnest-faced professionalism, that tend to be the source of any occasional bouts of self disgust, a downturn in one’s level of self-esteem.

I’m comfortable in the knowledge that if I have a talent, it’s for writing. To a greater or lesser extent I have always earned my living by doing exactly that so it must be true, right? Write? So if I’m so gosh-darned good at it, why am I not a household name, or at the very least featuring on the cover of those books piled up on the tables in Waterstone’s?

This quotation made me think. And the blog post attached to it has done much of my work for me in making my point – so I am quite shamelessly and with thanks to Jeff Vogel – linking to it. Here.

Marketing on the Streets

Supermarkets are so easy. Even easier when your daughter works for one particularly superior chain and thus receives a 15% discount. But their prepackaged convenience has made us suspicious of their precursors, the street market. My husband’s lip curls at the very thought of buying from a market stall, partly because ‘you don’t know where it’s come from’. Well, it’s unlikely that it’s come from New Zealand, the Maldives or Timbuctu – and I’m increasingly of the mind that I would PREFER to support my local farmers and small businesses by breaking free of the supermarket shackles and taking my custom and my power of choice (in terms of meat, veg and fruit at least) to the hardy stallholder outside.

Farmers’ markets in particular are good for producers and customers alike. Sellers have a short supply chain to serve so get a fairer price for their products, and customers can buy truly local, fresh produce – which is often grown at a slower rate or, with meat, hung for the optimum period of time to produce a much better flavour. And there’s a chance for interaction and feedback, which can only be good for all of us. Let’s polish our conversation skills at the same time!