Are you a planner?

To succeed in business these days we’re told to plan everything and have a clear focus. As I’m still new to running my own business I have some plans in place but also I feel my offering is evolving. We set out with ideas of what we want to achieve and how we want to help and very quickly adapt to the market and what our clients really want.

I did plenty of market research prior to leaving my full-time role and felt sure that small businesses really did have a need for social media support but the reality is slightly different. It appears that many businesses I have spoken to have had their fingers burnt by someone who had promised to help for a large fee and their efforts weren’t achieving the growth they had anticipated.

Listen to what your clients really want

There was also an increased awareness, on my part, that I would only be able to help a few people when really I wanted to help many more. One of my clients is an organisation with a similar customer base to my FSB days, so my experience is transferring over seamlessly, however, I have to say that the opportunities that arise are plentiful and it’s with renewed excitement that I can diversify and build on my previous experiences to plug the gaps in their requirements. What surprising opportunities have come your way this last year?

I’ve always been in roles where I’ve had to think on my feet to solve the challenges I’ve been confronted with, but I don’t think I appreciated how valuable a skill that was until now. How often do you solve a problem for someone else and not really see the value you’ve brought them? Have you ever listed out all the problems you’ve solved over the years and thought about those transferable skills?

Got a problem?

In a previous life, I was Operations Manager at a Castle and each day brought at least one new problem to solve - if only I’d kept a diary! The key though, is appreciating those skills and accepting that being modest about them is actually depriving those people who need your skills of learning from you.

This has been brought home to me on many occasions since I started my business in September, so now is the time to embrace the variety of skills I’ve amassed over the years and put them to good use, which I believe will be more fulfilling to me too. The start (and end for that matter) of a year often encourages us to reflect on what we’ve achieved and where we’d like to get to. Have you used this break over Christmas to reflect on your business journey too? Does it mean a change of direction or a slight pivot?

Do your best plans stem from casual conversations?

A conversation over drinks this holiday, safely conducted on Google Meet I might add, really drove this home for me. I don’t know about you but these current restrictions (UK, Christmas 2020, Tier 4) have been playing havoc with my need for human contact and as “virtual” is the only answer at the moment, I’m embracing it. With Dad living abroad, I’ve been fluent in Facetime for many years, and my previous role was home-based so with 3 years of using virtual conferencing, the switch to virtual has not thrown me in the same way as some - although it has to be said, moving all our in-person networking meetings across to online ones was a massive challenge and stress as the system softwares really didn’t want to talk to each other! But another learning curve is overcome and that may well be really significant in what I do next.

Anyway, after a good catch up on the personal front, our conversation moved to progress in our professional lives - we’ve both faced significant changes and challenges - and when she heard what I’d been up to in terms of creating training courses for a client, my friend (also a problem solver) had me in mind to help with a couple of projects she’s working on. I can’t tell you what a confidence boost it is when someone who knows you really well values your skills and stretches you outside of your comfort zone to try something new with those skills - because they believe in you. We all need friends like that, don’t we?

So do you embrace learning? 

I don’t think we give ourselves enough credit for the active learning we achieve each day. Some of the skills and habits we pick up along the way and others we learn because we have to and, let’s be honest, a little resentfully at times, but those skills will come in handy when you least expect it. How many of us have had to sit through fire training, manual handling training and Health & Safety training and thought it was a waste of time? Yet, I know from my own experience that each of those skills has been valued at various points in my life. I remember being a First Aider at work for many years and although apprehensive about the responsibility initially, I appreciated that those skills could help my family as well.

I know it is considered dull, but just in case my trainers stumble across this blog, I was very lucky with my H&S training. At Rockingham we had a very jolly instructor who was clever at driving home that it was all about saving lives and some of the images he showed us at the end of the session, almost for a laugh, but seriously, were quite shocking - seeing South American workers balancing ladders off the back of trucks, made us realise how lucky we were.

Do you appreciate your teachers?

We learn so much from our teachers, mentors, instructors and we must remember we have a duty to pass on our learnings and I am realising that in order to help the number of people I’d like to, I need to teach what I have learned. I have thought about the various instructors I’ve had over the years so I hope I can capture the best of them and channel a bit of fun and a lot of enthusiasm into my training.

So, after listening to various contacts and friends, one of my projects for this year is to launch an online course to learn about Instagram - it seems this channel eludes a few of you and admittedly there is a lot to learn with all the different elements, so my 5 week course will be Prosper With Insta - From Instagram 101 to crazily confident in 5 weeks! This is making me a planning queen!

Struggling with Instagram?

If you know of anyone who perhaps has an instagram account for their business and doesn’t really know what to do with it, or perhaps wants to set up an Instagram account but has been putting it off, let them know I have a free top tips they can download here and my course will start on 2 February. My Prosper with Insta course will include a Facebook live training once a week plus a Q&A a couple of days later to address any questions you may have on that week’s training. There will also be a closed Facebook group for you to interact with others on the course and follow each other’s new Instagram accounts and get ideas from each other. This group learning approach is so powerful and really encourages you to practice the learning instead of watching passively - I know from personal experience that I learnt faster this way. You often find others in the group have similar challenges, which can be reassuring but it’s amazing how we can help each other out with creative suggestions as well.

I’m excited for it and hope you will be too! Drop me a comment below if you have anything particular you’d like to see in this 5 week course and I’ll see if I have space to build it in.

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog, please share with anyone you think would like it, and see you next week!