better business blog

Tips and stories to add value to you and your organisation

Toy Time!

27 February 2011

I’m coming to the end of a long process because my fourth book is almost finished; the deadline being 1st March for the manuscript to be delivered, in order to meet a publication date of June/July 2011.

The title of this book is: HOW TO KEEP YOUR JOB

Catchy huh! …And the subtitle is: Brilliant ways to improve productivity, stay employed and keep the money rolling in.

Writing books is a long process because you have three main production stages before you get to the selling and marketing work. They are:

– Planning
– Writing
– Editing

There is also a fourth stage that tends to creep in and that’s called faffing. This is an essential part of the creative process and involves drinking extra cups of tea, tweeting instead of writing and generally gazing into space. However, by chewing a pencil at the same time it is possible to look lost in deep thought, instead of merely vacant (which is pretty much what is going on behind the curtains).

The other ingredient is stamina. Marathon runners only have to jog along for three or four hours and then the race is over. Writers have to keep going for hundreds of hours in order to get the words down on paper and then rearrange them so that they make some kind of sense.

There are no shortcuts if you want to write a book; you have to put in the time and keep pushing forwards.

As for me, this weekend I will notch up 30+ hours of editing and polishing, on top of the 60 hours or so I worked during the last 7 days. The end result will be worth it though, as the book is full of practical tips and useful models and, because it has my name on the cover, I need to make sure it’s a book to be proud of.

I know that you too will have worked hard this last week and therefore my point here is for us all to consider:

When I email the manuscript across to Marshall Cavendish my next task will be to click the ‘place your order’ button on Amazon and release into my clutches a nifty little remote control helicopter, as a well done to me for working so hard.

The book will take several weeks to line edit, type set and print, but the helicopter will be mine next week and it will be a top toy to keep my Child Ego State amused and repay him for missing his weekends in the sun.

Children need fun and playtime and just because we’re big hairy grown ups, doesn’t mean that we can ignore the little child inside us, who still needs to play and enjoy doing something just for the pleasure of it.

So, this week it’s toy time!

What will you be choosing for the small child inside you?

Tags: Child Ego State, tip

Let’s Do Lunch!

30 January 2011

One really simple way to get ourselves out and about and doing some useful networking is simply to do lunch. I mention this because recently I’ve had two lunches where I met business friends for a natter and with no set agenda.

Because we were relaxed we had friendly chats. And…and this is the key point here…in both cases I came away with new options for networking and for pursuing marketing activities.

It reminded me that often we don’t really know what our friends are doing and what other skills they have until we talk to them.

So, here’s my 4-step plan to get us started:

1. Pick a friend who is in similar situation to yourself, e.g. running their own business.

2. Invite them out to lunch, or to meet up for tea and cake.

3. Have a relaxed friendly chat and mention your frustrations.

4. Ask if they know of any solutions, or options for actions?

The key thing is that we need to be comfortable enough to reveal our frustrations. Doing this is a great way to move the conversation from gentle ‘pastiming’ into something more purposeful and ‘activity’ related.

Pastiming is a word from TA and it means a safe level of conversation where we risk little and get little in return. Activity, in a TA context, is when we move beyond platitudes and start to do some work. We risk more, by perhaps revealing concerns, but we get more in return.

So, if you’re wrestling with a problem, want to increase your networking activities, or are chewing the end of your pencil over an issue, then my suggestion is to stop. And to start doing lunch.

You never know how useful it might be and what new possibilities will open up for you.

Where could lunch take you?

This week it’s taking me out to dinner…for more networking with interesting people.

Tags: lunch, networking, tip