Author: admin

I’ve been honing my website, as is required when you’re in the writing and speaking game. Hence the lack of a blog last week. Honing is hard work and I’m all sorted now – and have transformed www.richardmaun.com into an Amazing World of Rich. I love it!

Mind you, it’s hard isn’t it, to write less!

How good are you at distilling the essence of what you do into a couple of finely tuned sentences? How much time do you spend refining exactly what makes your products or services better?

These are questions I was asked at a meeting last week, whilst scribbling notes with one hand, typing a new speaker biog for the agency’s catalogue with another, and sipping tea with a third. (It was that kind of a day).

We threw words around for a while, trying to get to the core of being Rich. And then the sales director fixed me with a look and said:

‘Richard, these are things that everyone does. They’re ok…but tell me, what do you do BETTER?’

What a great question! Maybe the best business question I’ve heard all year. A question that puts ‘Would you like some cake?’ firmly into second place.

We all do similar things, so trying to be clever can tie us into knots when thinking up that killer phrase. However, differentiation, that elixir of business success, simply requires us to notice the key points of difference, rather than trying to think of a new name for the wheel.

So, what I do better, in combination is:

Coaching, writing, speaking, broadcasting – safe, ethical and highly creative. An expert in Physis, I’m the only person I know who blends Transactional Analysis with Lean thinking and Organisational Impact Scores.

As Carly Simon sang: ‘Nobody does it better….baby you’re the best!’

So, this week – tell me what you’re better at? What makes you best, baby?!

I was musing on what to write this week and would have told you the story of how our guest’s microphone packed up live on air, during Business Life. We’d have emailed the engineers for help, if the internet hadn’t gone down and blinded us to the outside world. Studios are their own little desert island and you could be wrestling a bear in there and nobody would notice. Well, not until the bear went on air to apologise for the kerfuffle.

However, that story is one of stretched fibres in a cable and too dull to tell really. We panicked calmly, broke for music, swapped mics over and carried on. Another experience in my radio-land notebook.

So, instead of telling you about that, here’s a good little story about an email.

Over the weekend I received an interesting email that reads:

“Dear Richard

I’ve just read your book Job Hunting 3.0 and found it truly inspiring and very practical. I’d like to connect to you on LinkedIn.

Good wishes

Carl”

I’ve changed his real name, but this is a real email from a happy customer. How lovely for him to write and I’m reminded that 3 years ago when I wrote the book I made sure to pepper it with contact details.

People do like to say hello and you never know where it will lead, so my point this week is:

If we’re easy to find, we’re easy to do business with.

How easy are you to find? Isn’t it time you swapped your witty Twitter name for your own name (first name at least) so people can talk to you and remember you more easily? People buy people, and the ones that get found first get the money!

How can you make it easier for people to find you? Are your contact details on your reports and products? Who knows you’re here?

I now know Carl. And I have a great little book endorsement to share.

Have fun being found!