Look into the cute puppy's eyes ...then remember that it's Ok to value your skill!

The message here is that it’s Ok to want money, it’s Ok to ask for money and it’s Ok to value yourself. I was chatting with a chum over coffee and cake this week and we were discussing how some professions suffer from what I call the Can I just pick your brain Mate syndrome.

What this means is that if you sell specialist knowledge some people can think it’s perfectly ok to help themselves to 20 years of training and work experience, exams, heartache and learning that you have put yourself through to get to this point, by assuming that you’ll happily give them expertise for free. I used to fall foul of this when I was first working as a business coach.

I’d have a ‘getting to know you chat’ with a networking colleague, who would run some tricky business questions past me and invite my thoughts. Being greener than an Irish meadow I of course gave them the benefit of my wisdom, much to their satisfaction. Then when I suggested they might like to consider some paid for organisational development work they’d say:

‘Oh no need thanks, you’ve answered my questions now.’

Grrrr! How annoying.

Just because someone has an intangible skill such as business coaching, psychology, marketing, finance and so on doesn’t mean that ‘brain work’ is free work! After Christmas I was talking with a potential client and said that I would like to value my time, as I have kids to feed …because improving organisations is how I earn my living. There was a pause, whilst they thought about it, so I filled the gap with:

‘Would you expect to walk into your local café and help yourself to a pasty, just because you were hungry?’

‘Or do you just take a newspaper from your local corner shop and say that as it’s only worth 50p, it doesn’t really matter, as you walk out?’

Of course you wouldn’t!

So therefore, if I choose to value my time, please respect that it’s how I put food on the table for my children. If I choose to give you a gift then that’s me being generous, but the choice is mine. I’m happy to give gifts and I’m happy to value my time, as I’m good at what I do and worth the fee rate.

If you find it hard to ask for money, then look your client in the eye and simply state:

‘This is how I earn my living.’

We’re all allowed to earn money and use the skills we have, and asking to be paid is part of the job. Just ask your local taxi driver, the next time you get a lift home – he won’t hesitate to ask for money.

Yes, yes the kitten is very cute. Now, stop looking at it and go and talk to someone...!

In the headlong rush to make progress in the world it’s tempting to charge into ‘doing’ work, in order to look super-productive and be well thought of. However, this is to ignore a key element that we need to remember, if we are going to have a successful modern career – that’s is: People first, work second.

Until we make contact with people, we can’t effectively work with them.

This is because we need them to trust us, we need them to be honest with us and we need them to share issues and concerns with us. Otherwise the second we leave the room, the work we thought would happen starts to unravel, as their doubts creep in and they edge away from their promises.

Making contact requires us to realise that people really are important (not just to pretend either …you’ll be found out if you’re not sincere). I was with a client the other week who, at the end of the session, offered the following feedback:

‘I was dreading today Richard. I didn’t want to meet you for this [coaching] work. And yet …where did the time go? It was great fun. What was I worried about?’

This was great feedback, and I had sensed she was pushing me away, so I had spent half the time simply taking time for us to build an honest relationship. Whilst I can’t remember the exact conversation, here are 5 things I did to make a difference:

1) Listened to my senses …the client looked uncomfortable to begin with.

2) Reminded myself that getting to know someone is work! It underpins future success.

3) Noticed areas of commonality. It turned out that we shared some similarities in our life. Funny that!

4) Allowed the conversation to unfold. As it did so the client unfolded her arms.

5) Had fun. The room had a drinks trolley in it left over from a Christmas party. I wondered aloud if we should taste some of the wine, just to make sure it was still drinkable. Haha! Fun is fun and a smile is a great way to make contact.

Think about your work this week and which people you need to spend time with as part of your successful week? Who needs a bit of your time?

Remember: People is work too innit!

#Book News. JobHunting3.0 has been reprinted and is now just back in stock in Amazon (book and kindle), WHSmiths and so on. If you know someone who is looking for work, whether a first job student or an experienced manager, this is the book to get.

There is beauty in simplicity

We had a great weekend at Center Parcs recently, perhaps our best ever – in terms of the children being happy and us  parents being calm and contented. I think our success was that this year we kept things simple. Namely:

No electronic games …so no arguments about who had which game or ‘just another 5 minutes please’.

No lunches in overpriced cafe-grill-bar-waffle houses that fill up your stomach, but drain your wallet and your soul …as you wrestle a sticky menu and fidgetting children.

No jostling or queueing when you go swimming from 4pm to 7pm when it’s toddler tea time and families are away from the pool …we take our toddlers and feed them poolside, which is part of the fun. And our big toddlers can go and play on the rapids, whilst it’s quieter there too.*

It was great to have a calm and pleasant weekend and to not feel we’d been mugged for expensive meals, toys, or activities. Geocaching was fun in the Saturday sunshine and family bowling always brings out a little healthy competition. We pre-ordered food from Waitrose, collected it on the way and had some yummy things to eat, without any hassle. Sorted!

We focussed on what worked well, avoided complexity and had a good time.

And we can apply the same thinking to our modern careers, whether managing our business, planning a job change, or navigating through a tough time at work:

• Have some fun, don’t just work work work.
• Spend money wisely, or not at all.
• Learn from past experiences and apply this learning to improve things.
• Less is more, so simplify your day.

We haven’t always got it right, but we did this year. So…

1. What will you be doing well this week?
2. What can you simplify?
3. How can you improve your Parc Life?

Have fun!

*Toddler Dad sometimes goes on the rapids too, but you don’t need to know that.

Gaze inside the island of your mind ...learning points are waiting there!

The world is alive with the smell of a freshly minted year and the cackle of a million people sharing resolutions and promising to do all the things they failed at last year! But what is gong to be so different for us this year? What are we really going  change?

Instead of looking forwards it can pay handsomely to look back and reflect on what got in the way of our success last year, or what we did to make things happen for us. Change is based on learning from the past and the application of good decisions …and so we can all pause the headlong rush into 2012 and ask ourselves:

•  What 3 things did I really learn from last year?

Once we have some new learning to inform our thinking, then, and only then, can we plan for the current year and decide what to drop, what to change and what to start. And if all we do is tweak a bit here and nudge a bit there, then nothing is really going to change, is it?

So, welcome to last year! What did you learn? How can you apply it for a better 2012?

For me, I learned that to get a radio show I needed to swallow my competitiveness and invite a co-host in the space. And boy, was that ever a smart move …Julie Bishop is just the best person to work with and I’m so glad we found each other.

When a friend offers you gold - take it!

I was lucky the other day, because a friend on Twitter complained to me that he was a bit fed up seeing tweets inviting people to head to Amazon and buy my book, called How To Keep Your Job.

He complained in that gently teasing way that friends can be so good at, so I didn’t feel hurt, just a bit nudged in the ribs.

I telephoned him (as that’s the correct verb here. Had I written ‘called him’, you might have thought I had hailed him over the fence in a neighbourly kind of way) and explained that tweeting sells books and that as an author my job is to write and sell books.

(Seasoned authors know that writing can be the easy bit – selling is the really hard slog).

‘Aha!’ He replied, ‘I hadn’t appreciated that. Fair enough!’

But the complaint remained, hovering in the air, like a, well, like a hovery thing – selling is ok, but over-selling isn’t.

So, I will be more mindful in the future of how often I tweet ‘Buy My Book It’s Great’ and more importantly will remember that if people need to hear a message 7 times before they act on it, they will be fed up after hearing that message 15 times.

And of course friendly feedback is the best because it’s truthful.

Next time a friend gives you a piece of feedback, don’t dismiss it – listen carefully, because although they might be smiling and teasing you, underneath their words is a little nugget of gold, for you to think about and act on!

Now, please stop reading this and go and buy my book! There’s still time before Christmas! Haha!

Gratutitous beach shot ...to make you feel warm when it's cold outside!

Hello there and first of all apologies for the recent lack of blog posts and for the couple that were sent twice. This is all because my sites have moved server and like all good moves it takes more time to get the codes out of the packing cases than it did to put them in. I’m sure you know how it is.

Websites can be tricky beasts …so best left to experts who have the right kind of panel van to shift them about in.

And of course once they’re in strapped into the van you can’t blog to say that you can’t blog …if you see what I mean!

But hey! There’s only 8 coaching days left to Christmas …and if you want to beat the jammed car parks and sweaty masses then let yourself enjoy a spot of Skype Coaching.

This has all the same meaty nourishment as regular coaching, with added time efficiency and a global reach.

I’m a time-zone friendly person and work to RMT (Richard Mean Time) which is loosely based on Greenwich and flexes to accommodate client needs. Book-writing followers already know I’m a ‘night wol’ (as Winnie the Pooh would say) and so my plan is to span the six corners of the globe. (Who said ambition has to be limited to a measly old four corners?).

Skype coaching is there 24/7! Now there’s no excuse to take your career forwards in 2012 and maybe even include an ILM TA for Leaders course too!

…And if you’re reading this and saying:  ‘Hmmm it’s not like Rich to be so blatantly selling things, and he hardly ever mentions his books either’ then you’re right!

However, last week on our Business Life show on Future Radio (listen live or via the web at 2pm on Thursday) we were talking about selling skills. One of them that didn’t feature on the show is that when you have a new product or service you need to tell people, which is easy to overlook sometimes in the rush to wrap all my Christmas presents (thank you in advance) …haha!

So….two questions for you:

1) When will you be booking some CPD-enhancing Skype coaching in 2012?

2) What new products or services will you be shouting about in 2012?

I’m off to Switzerland in the morning and then Scotland in the afternoon …and no air miles! Eco business and fun too!

Ambition comes in many flavours... if yours is bananas then that

This week I’m excited (and a bit nervous) because our weekly ‘Business Life’ radio show goes live and takes to the air on Thursday 24th at 2.00pm, on Future Radio. You can listen live in the Norwich area on 107.8FM or via the web and there will be a podcast afterwards if you miss it.

It’s been great fun practising with my co-host Julie Bishop and we have lined up our first guest, written some blurb for the press release and are talking to potential sponsors. All exciting stuff.

And I was reminded that nearly 18 months ago I was talking to my PR colleague about the press work for my third book, Job Hunting 3.0 (the numbering was concidental), and he asked what I wanted?

I replied that: ‘I really want a million pairs of eyes to know this book exists and I want my own radio show too.’

He nodded and said ‘fair enough.’

I was surprised. ‘Er, so you’re not going to laugh at me then?’

‘What for?’

‘For wanting my own radio show…you don’t think it sounds a bit, erm, arrogant?’

‘No Richard, I don’t. And anyway why would I laugh at ambition?’

Why indeed and it was a pleasant surprise to be reminded that ambition is okay. Many people have a voice in their head that says ‘don’t do that, it’s silly’ or ‘don’t do that, as people will think you’re an idiot’ and they listen to that voice, rather than to their heart.

I love radio and I love being in the studio and having fun with the buttons and faders and laughing with Julie.

And I love writing books and I love my coaching and training work.

All of them are way-points on the journey that is my life and all reflect my ambitions. If you have a voice in your head, that’s holding you back, then turn the volume down on it and pay attention to people who will say positive things and support you. When I said I wanted a radio show I had no idea how/who/when and so on. Ambition comes first and the detail unravels as you talk to people and share your dreams.

So, as you look forward to the next 18 months of your life, what do you want to achieve? And who will you share this with?

You can be ambitious and you can find your voice and can start to make it happen for yourself.

Oh and the million pairs of eyes? We did nearly two million, but that’s another story.

This isn't a cup of tea... it's a conversation starter!

A client asked me how to start a conversation and it reminded me that it’s often easier to talk about networking than it is to go and do it. Starting conversations is easy, when you have prepared a couple of opening gambits. These can include:

A) You smile, profer your hand for a fellow networker to shake and introduce yourself. You can then ask them: Have you had a busy day? (Or do you have a busy day to look forward to?). These are closed questions and you can bet they’ll be answered with a ‘Yes’. Then you can follow up with an ‘open’ conversation starter such as: And what does a busy day look like for you?

B) Recognise that people like to begin a conversation with safe ‘Rituals’ such as organising drinks and asking how you are? Answer: Fine. (This is safe and predictable… if you want to scramble their brain then firmly clasp their arm and thank them for their concern, before talking wildly about your troubles). After a Ritual introduction people are happy to do some ‘Pastiming’. This is where we chat about safe subjects, such as the weather, the journey to the meeting, if they watched a popular TV programme and so on. Pastiming requires more thought than Ritual and there’s more risk involved (perhaps in disclosing you watch the Antiques Roadshow) and with a few easy questions you can soon find yourself in the flow of a productive conversation.

Ritual and Pastiming are two TA terms that relate to Time Structuring… which is a model that helps us to work out where we are in a conversation. It’s only once we’ve made a friend or built some rapport that we can move up to ‘Activity’ and get down to business.

And a tip that I often offer is simply to learn five good questions that are easy for people to answer. If you’re stressed then it’s simpler to just use rote learning to get a conversation started, rather than having the burden of thinking in the moment! Suggestions include:

1) How long have you done that?

2) How did you get started?

3) What trends are there in your industry?

4) What mistakes do people tend to make when they start out?

5) What do you look for in a client?

Preparation is the key and it’s okay to rehearse your questions on the journey, to make sure you have them up and running in your head. That’s what I do!

And remember… people like to be listened to, so if you’re doing more nodding and less talking, the other person will feel like it’s a really great conversation.

Happy chatting!

There are lots more tips to improve our people skills in the book How To Keep Your Job. Have you read it yet?

Step up to the mike... and tell us about your talent!

It’s a funny old thing ‘pride’ and the notion that pride is a sin, although designed to promote humility, isn’t helpful in today’s weary world. We need every ounce of grit and spit if we’re going to succeed in our Modern Career.

We need to know that we’re talented.

During the last month I worked with two clients who made the leap from being fed up and run down, to achieving great performance and increasing their happiness.

The secret is that as we talked and considered their tangible achievements they realised for themselves that they are talented people. (Not ‘were’ talented people… they still are talented).

Not boastful either. Just aware that the work they do requires skill and that success isn’t down to luck.

So, this week if you, or a colleague, does well and says ‘oh it was just luck’ stop and think.

It wasn’t luck. It was talent.

We all have real talent and once we admit this to ourselves we can really excel and have a good life. And because so many people don’t do this, we can zoom past them and get good jobs, or make a career change, or follow an ambition.

And I’ve done just that. My new radio show called ‘Business Life’ goes on air at 2pm UK time on Thursday 24th November.

I’ve been practicing hard with my co-host, Julie Bishop, and we have a pacey, fun, informative show that we and Future Radio are all really excited about. It mixes chat with music and a studio guest. (Volunteers take one pace forward). Our 60 minutes whooshes by and we love it.

And we started from knowing nothing about running the desks, producing content, working mics, timing ads and idents… the list goes on. We just had a love for radio and the knowledge that we’re determined, talented people. All the rest is just detail, waiting to be learned.

You can listen live either on 107.8FM in Norwich or through the magic of the worldwide interweb thingy.

And we promise not to play only 80′s music too! (We were told off for that when doing a demo. These young people have no respect!)

Enjoy your week… and enjoy your talent!

You don't need batteries to find your voice!

Sometimes life or work can spring a surprise on us and for a moment we waver and wonder what to do.

In that long moment of hesitation all sorts of things rush through our head. Fear, worries, uncertainty about the future, what should we do next?

And life is all about ‘moments and turning points’ …an elegant phrase that I wish was mine, but belongs to Alan Robertson, a Cranfield colleague and all-round good chap.

In these tiny bubbles of time we have to think on our feet and remind ourselves that:

1) We’re OK! We are good, worthwhile people at heart.

2) We have a right to be here and a right to decide for ourselves what to do.

3) We have a voice and can use it. We can pause and think and then we can speak and be heard – we can find our voice.

Last week a friend of mine found her voice and resigned her job, to begin a new life as a consultant.

Last week my colleague found his voice and asked for some help to choose between two exciting job opportunities.

Last week a client practised his presentation skills and his voice moved from monotony to fluidity. He found his selling voice and secured a new job.

Sometimes we want to say things to people, to be heard, to share our feelings and our voice catches in the back of our throat. When this happens, take a deep breath, remember that you’re a worthwhile person and speak out loudly and clearly. Maybe:

…Ask for what you need.
…Share your thoughts.
…Say ‘no thanks’ or ‘not yet’.
…Tell someone how you feel.
…Take that decision.

And enjoy the moment as you find your voice.

When will you be finding your voice this week?