Nobody is Practising Anything

If you run your own business or you run a department of a business what do you do every day?

Have you ever taken time out to think about what happens each day at work? 

A typical day for a sales person called John might look something like this.

09:00 Arrive, relax into their desk place and chat
09:30 Make a coffee

09:45 Open their email

09:50 Call their spouse to let them know they arrived to work safely

10:00 Go to the loo

10:15 Have a chat with office colleague

10:30 Reply to some emails

10:45 Post arrives

10:50 Read through post

11:00 Make first cold call

11:30 After 6 NOs on the calls they break for a coffee

11:45 Call their friend to make plans for the evening

12:00 Reply to some emails

12:30 Follow up on a few leads and quotes

13:00 Lunch Break

14:10 Back from lunch

14:15 Close 1 lucky deal

14:20 Celebrate by making a coffee

14:45 Drive to appointment

15:45 Arrive unprepared not really knowing anything about the potential client

16:15 Leave having had a great meeting

17:15 Arrive back at office to tell boss how great the meeting was

17:30 Head for home

Anyone running their own business has to make every hour of every day count. They could never afford to waste time in the way that John does.

But most small business owners aren't practising anything. Instead, like John, they are reacting to the day. To the emails that arrive; to the phone calls they receive; to the post that arrives etc. This is a fundamental flaw in most small businesses. 

Instead they should be practising every single day. Michael Gerber of eMyth Worldwide tells a great story about his saxaphone teacher, Merl. Merl told Michael if he wanted to be the best saxophone player in the world he had to practice 5 hours a day, 5 days a week.
One day he said, "Michael, you don't make music; the music finds you. Your job is to practice." 

And that is what Michael says we should do; practice, practice, practice - looking for the music, looking for the music. And one day after Michael had been practicing his saxophone playing for a few weeks, suddenly the music would just turn up, and all the hairs on the back of Michael's neck would stand on end and Merl would join in and play harmony. It was amazing. 

Michael says we can do the same in our businesses. If we practice the right things everyday, suddenly our music will show up.

So what are you practicing in your business? Don't be like John, who doesn't really practice anything and hopes and prays the music will show up for him.


Instead, practice the right things for your business. Don't react to the things that you know are going to happen everyday - email; post; phonecalls etc.
Make the things that don't usually happen, happen. Become proactive and see what a difference it can make to your business.

My Business Time Table

Time Management  Inspired by my Daughter!

It amazes me how much my daughter learns at school. It also amazes me at how much holiday she gets! Which led me to think she probably spends more time on holiday than she does at school!

Yet, she gets so much done. This got me thinking. If she and her classmates spend such little time at school how come they are able to learn so much and do so much at school?

Then it hit me. They have a school time table which they stick to. The teachers and the children know what lessons they are doing and when. Every day is mapped out on the school time table which includes breaks and lunch time. 

I loved this idea - it was so simple and yet so effective! So I decided to create a business time table for my daily tasks. 

I spent some time planning the layout and I now have the perfect template for my Business Time Table. It even has breaks and lunch time which for me is great because I never, ever took morning or afternoon breaks. In fact, it's still tricky to stick to, as here I am at 11pm writing this blog post! 

How do you manage your time? Do you end up getting distracted by the events of the day? Checking your email too often and feeling you have to respond right away? Do you find the incoming phone calls distract and take you off on a different tangent?
 
Don't let these day to day events distract you. Don't be reactive - instead get proactive on your business. When you're working on a particular blog post or article then close all the other applications on your computer. This will really help you focus. 

I also use a wonderful online timer at www.online-stopwatch.com. I set a certain chuck of time to a task and when the alarm bell rings I stop what I'm doing and move on to the next thing. Just like a bell at the end of lesson at school. But no, I don't scramble to put all my books away and rush to my next class! However, it could be a bit of fun to run out of my office and then back in again!

Start using a time table for your business and begin controlling the things you need to focus on.

And if you would like a copy of my Business Time Table template please email me at info@dickiearmour.me.uk and I'll be glad to send it to you.

My Day Job Versus My Passion

So many people are employed and

My Twitter Presence

This blog post has been triggered by a great post I read by Chris Brogan at www.chrisbrogan.com.
In Chris' article he talks about how hard it can be to manage 146,000 followers and to be able to engage with them. He then explains his mindset and methodology and some of the tools he uses.

Here I'll share what I do. Like Chris, his way is wonderful, your way will be wonderful too. My way is just the way I choose to use Twitter.

My Twitter Presence

My Account

@DickieArmour

The Tools

Here's a list of the tools I use for Twitter:

Hootsuite – for my desktop.
TweetDeck - for my desktop.
Hootsuite – for my phone.
TweetDeck - for my phone.
Seesmic Mobile - for my phone.
Echofon - for my phone.
ManageFlitter - for manual deletion of inactive followers
Twitter Search – for search strings.
Listorious – for finding good Twitter lists.

My Twitter Goals

I use Twitter for many different things. My main goal is to connect with like-minded people around the world. My reasons for using Twitter are probably different to your's. Your goals are also okay. (Oh, and you’re doing it wrong!)

• I use Twitter to find like-minded people
• I use Twitter to have 2 way conversations
• I use Twitter to raise my profile
• I use Twitter to provide interesting stuff to my community
• I use Twitter to promote other people’s stuff much more than I do to promote my stuff 
• I use Twitter to find out about upcoming events
• I use Twitter to keep in touch with friends
• I use Twitter to keep in touch with customers
• I use Twitter to find business (via search) 
• I use Twitter to find new suppliers
• I use Twitter to spy on competitors
• I use Twitter to get help with all sorts of things
• I use Twitter to send & receive DMs rather than email sometimes
• I use Twitter to give me magical moments of Serendipity

My Twitter Methods

• I never follow the Home Feed (Your Friends). It flows too fast to keep up!
• I use loads of different search strings.
• I save these searches and have them in columns in both TweetDeck and Hootsuite.
• I always check my @replies and DM columns so I can be sure to reply and join in the convesrations.
• I use lists so I can catch up on conversations and tweets from the different groups I'm interested in.
• I follow lots of other Lists. You'll find people have already done the hard work for you. 
• For example Nigel Legg has a great List of people in Bristol,UK where I live. So I follow this list instead of wasting time creating my own.
• I tend to follow back most people. I won't follow you if you don't have a profile photo or logo.
• I like to provide interesting articles on Internet marketing, Social Media, business, sales & marketing
• I schedule my article tweets using Hootsuite, usually the previous night.
• I always retweet things I find of interest and think others will also find interesting. 
• I often post tweets with photos of where I am or things I see or books I'm reading.
• I try to reply as often as I can. If I miss your @ message, I’m very sorry.
• I like Echofon on my iPhone because it autocompletes @ usernames for the more tricky ones which are easy to forget or mistype.
• I use Twitter to send & receive DMs rather than email sometimes.
• I often use Twitter to get answers and to get help.
• Twitter is a great place to connect with companies like BT. BT have been excellent with their customer service on Twitter.
• Don't rely on using Twitter to always reach me. If you need me immediately, just call me on my mobile phone. 
• But of course, the old fashioned ways of communicating like email and phone still work! 
• Twitter is an amazing place for serendipity! Try it and see!

How do YOU use Twitter?

This is how I use Twitter. Chris Brogan said it would be fun to see your post on his “My Twitter Presence.” Or feel free to put your links to such posts and comments in the comments section below.