Category Archives: Strategy & Planning

And Breathe

With the end of the year rapidly approaching and so many things to do – in business and life in general – it is tempting to keep pushing on and pushing on to GET THINGS DONE! Planning for 2013 seems to be THE topic of conversation at present and yes, I have been busy running workshops and working with clients on their plans for the year ahead but I’ll let you into a secret… I haven’t done my planning yet!  And right now, despite all my best intentions, it’s starting to feel like yet ANOTHER thing to do… another pressure… another thing to fit in to an already full to bursting schedule!

Where are we supposed to find the time, space or energy to make decisions affecting our precious businesses at this time of year? Well, I have a suggestion to make – let’s forget about business planning for now (… see, it feels better already, doesn’t it?) and simply take a few precious moments to breathe, pause and reflect. I’m an advocate of the ABC method – Awareness Before Change – because it’s not about forging ahead regardless – it’s about moving ahead in the right direction.

In fact it can be downright detrimental to keep pushing without assessing and re-evaluating what’s really going on in your business. So rather than trying to squeeze your business planning into a ‘window’ somewhere between buying the turkey and finding the dud fairy light on the Christmas tree, you can make an effective start to the planning process by looking back over the past 12 months and asking yourself the questions below.

  • What were the highlights of the past year – the breakthroughs, the feel-good moments?
  • What will you celebrate about the year you’ve just completed?
  • What were the lows – the disappointments, distractions and mistakes?
  • How are you different now than you were at the beginning of the year?
  • What is your intuition telling you about what you need to do next?
  • What has felt too hard and difficult – what do you need to let go of, drop or give to someone else to do?
  • What lessons have you learned this year & what implications do they have for next year?
  • What is something you wished you had done this past year? What stopped you from doing it?
  • What are you truly grateful for?

All done?

Excellent. Now you can relax knowing that when the madness subsides you’ll be perfectly placed and ready to create a meaningful plan for your business next year.  Merry Christmas!

Evolving into Change at Prime Time Business

Summer is traditionally the time for taking some long awaited ‘R & R’ and the same has been true for Prime Time Business – except the ‘R and R’ in question has been reflection followed by refocusing!  It has been a process of transition and evolution rather than radical change but as with any sort of change, it was still accompanied by a fair bit of resistance before the deed was actually done!

As those of you who’ve been with me for a while will know, Prime Time Business was originally set up to serve a specific group of women -  women in midlife who want to channel their experience, talents and energy into business success. I have LOVED working with these women because I LOVE helping women make the challenging but exciting transition into business.

So why you may ask, am I changing my focus?
Well, in working with midlife women over this period, I’ve gradually come to an important realisation that I could no longer ignore. You see, my clients do indeed have a shared, common problem that I help them with but that problem is nothing to do with age.  She certainly doesn’t think, ‘I want to become an olderpreneur?’ (God, I loathe that term!) … who can help me?’ But she IS however, at a point in her life where, in common with many women, she’s looking for – LONGING for – a more integrated way of living and working where she can earn a decent living doing what she loves doing. What she IS saying to herself is, ‘I just wish I could find a way to stop endlessly thinking about it and actually DO something about it!’

Many women arrive at this point – at different times and from different directions. It’s that point in life where you are frustrated, bored or compromised by your current situation – maybe you’re in a job that feels increasingly like a straitjacket… or you’re looking for a way to express your particular brilliance in the way you KNOW you’re capable of. Or maybe you simply want MORE from life and work.

No matter WHAT brings you to this point – having arrived here you’ll very likely experience the same feeling of longing, frustration and impotence that many, many women experience at this point… a longing for a different way of earning a living, combined with the frustration of not knowing HOW to do it!

I remember being in this situation all too well – feeling powerless and stuck in a limbo, knowing I certainly did NOT want to go ‘back’ but not knowing HOW to go forward… unsure of what I had to offer, let alone how I’d ever turn it into a viable business that made me the income I needed.

I really wish I’d had someone who had ‘been there and done it’ walking along side me at the start of my journey because I wasted more time than I care to admit (… let’s just say we’re not talking months here!) in this frustrating limbo trying to cobble things together when all I needed was the right support and encouragement and a step by step process to help me grow both myself and my business.

That’s where I can help YOU
My energy is now focused on working with women who find themselves at this point so that I can guide them beyond ‘powerless and stuck’ by helping them to shape and package their talents and passion in a profitable business that is uniquely their own.

The new tagline is, ‘A brilliant business begins with you’ because Prime Time Business’ coaching programmes are (and always have been) specifically designed to help you create a businesses based around who you are, what you’re passionate about and what you love to do. Because THIS, in my experience, is the essential foundation stone of a truly brilliant business. Once this foundation stone is in place, the rest becomes a whole lot easier.

So that’s it in a nutshell folks – more ‘evolution’ than ‘revolution’ but an important shift nonetheless and if you haven’t been on the website for a while, I’d love for you to take a look and find out a bit more. What I’ve remembered in the process of doing this is that no business remains static, we are constantly developing and evolving in response to the needs of the people they are designed to serve – and that’s just one of the many things which make them such a creative and attractive way of earning a living!

Are You Busy?

How’s your day been? Busy, I’ll bet.  As business owners there’s ALWAYS loads to do and we can quite easily fill an entire day emailing, tweeting, phoning, updating websites and the like. So I’ve no doubt you are busy BUT…. can you honestly say that you’re always productive? I know I can’t….  but I suspect I’m not the only one who’s been known to spend the whole day at her desk and still somehow manage to accomplish very little!

Being busy is one thing but being PRODUCTIVE however, well, that is an entirely different matter! Whilst we may kid ourselves that they are one and the same, they are VERY different!

Being productive is when our actions move us forward toward our goals. ‘Busy-ness’ on the other hand, whilst being very seductive in the way it makes you FEEL as though you’re working away on important stuff,  is often little more than  ‘displacement activity’.

Timothy Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek said : “Being busy is a form of mental laziness— lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.”

When I first read this I thought, ‘ Hmm.. that’s a bit harsh Tim!’ but you know what, I think he’s got a point, particularly the ‘indiscriminate action’ bit.

When we’re not really clear about what it is we’re actually trying to achieve or when we lose sight of our overall vision, THAT’S when we fall prey to the random, ‘ready-fire-aim’ approach rather than ensuring our actions are focused on getting us closer to where we really want to be!

So if you find yourself busy rather than productive you might like to try the ‘Stop-Ask-Clarify’ formula:

  • STOP
    Being productive first requires you to simply stop DOING and give yourself space to evaluate.
  • ASK
    The question to ask yourself is, “What exactly am I trying to accomplish here?”
  • CLARIFY
    Just as busy-ness thrives on confusion and distraction, productivity thrives on focus and clarity. So get really clear and specific about what you’re trying to achieve because once you are clear it is so much easier to see and follow a  defined path of action.

It’s easy to get lost in the detail and confuse activity with accomplishment so instead of getting on with busy-ness, STOP, ASK, CLARIFY… and realign your daily activities to your goals and to doing the things that matter…. and get on with business.

 

The Missing Part of Your Business Jigsaw

If you find yourself shilly-shallying about rather than getting on and doing, or you’re finding it difficult to make choices and decisions about exactly what will move your business forward and if you’re fed up and frustrated trying to make the pieces of your particular business jigsaw ‘fit together’ without success, listen in to the audio blog below where I’ll be introducing you to the likely culprit.

CLICK PLAY TO LISTEN:

Listen to Business Obstacle #1 Lack of Clarity

… and as always, I’d love to hear your comments and thoughts below. Thank you for listening!

Being ‘The Fixer’ in Your Business

Move over Mary Portas, there’s a new girl in town. I’m currently hooked on the BBC2 series called ‘The Fixer’ with the wonderful Alex Polizzi. I just love her straight-talking, practical approach to turning family-run businesses around by showing them – with her inimitable mixture of charm, warmth and brutal honesty – exactly where they’re going wrong. Plus she’s the only person I know who can call people ‘darling’ with devastating effect and get away with it!

In last night’s programme she was working with a family who had sunk their entire life savings into running Denver Mill, a working mill in Norfolk where, despite grinding flour…  making bread…. running baking courses… and a café… and a gift shop they were still barely making enough to survive.

Luckily for them they had Ms Polizzi to help them see the wood for the trees and actually focus on the solution that was actually right there, in front of them all the time. This family were doing what many of us business owners do, especially when the business is something which is so dear to us– our hearts  rule our heads, stopping us from focusing on the things that will actually make us the income we need to thrive rather than survive.

If the same thing’s happening to you, then maybe solution is right there in front of you but you just don’t see it.

What would you see if you were to take a step back and review things through an objective rather than an emotional lens? Chances are, it’ll be the solution.