The difference between a coach and a mentor

What’s the difference between a coach and a mentor?

I’m often asked this question and one of the best explanations I’ve seen recently is this article was written by Mark Boyd, Marketing Manager at School For Startups http://www.s4s.com

Want to be a successful entrepreneur?

Try to be born into a wealthy family that starts and owns successful businesses. That almost always seems to work well. Growing a company from the ground up requires a broad set of skills, and there’s nothing like discussing corporate mergers and intellectual property rights over the dinner table to prepare you to launch a successful enterprise as soon as you leave school. At least that seemed to work well for Bill Gates. But, for most of us, it is too late to choose a Mother and Father. That means you’ll have to find a good Mentor instead. Nothing shortens the road to personal and financial success for an entrepreneur more than some early hand holding by someone who has built a business from the ground up. Why?

Because you can’t teach what you don’t know . . .

An effective mentor should have the following properties:

• They have owned and operated a successful business, and they have demonstrated that they have the skills you need to master in order to succeed.
• They have some experience in running businesses similar to the one you want to run. It doesn’t need to be an enterprise in the same industry, but if you are planning to sell products it helps if your mentor has some insight into product design and product sales. If you are selling services, it is handy if they can help you come up with manpower management solutions.
• They’ve dealt with their fair share of disasters and disappointments. More than half of the skills required to build a successful business are related to dealing with the unknown and turning unpleasant surprises into unexpected opportunities. Furthermore, most very successful business professionals have had to start multiple enterprises in order to reach their current positions.
• They need to understand the true evolution of a business. A business starts with a simple idea which becomes a business model. They’ll understand the dangers inherent to each stage of a business, and be able give you some guidance to alleviate the growing pains. They won’t tell you to just write a business plan and take a loan . . .
• They’ll be honest. They’ll happily admit that they don’t know something they don’t know. They’ll tell you when they think an idea is unwise. They’ll offer their advice and then happily watch you make your own mistakes.
• They’ll be almost as proud of your successes as you are.
• And they’ll open up their Rolodex to offer you access to some of the resources and relationships they used to build their own successful enterprises.

While your boss may be your mentor, your mentor is not your boss. He is not your teacher. He is your advisor and your slightly senior compatriot. He is your coach and your confidant. One day, if you are very lucky, you will find he is your friend. Finding a good mentor can make all the difference between success and failure when it comes to starting a business. It will almost certainly change the course of your life forever. If you are starting your first business, and you don’t have a mentor to guide you, perhaps it is time you set out to find one. It may be one of the best business decisions you ever make . . .

Published in the S4S blog 23 Aug 2010

I don’t have a Rolodex but I do have a vast network of contacts, I’m a she and not a he and if you ask for my advice you’ll get it but you may not always like it. If you want someone to offer you soft words and assurances that you can have whatever you want I’m not the right mentor for you. I don’t deal in fluffy thinking and I know that businesses work irrespective of whether you are passionate about them or not. If you want straight talking based on 30 years in business and a sound knowledge of what makes people tick, you’ve come to the right place.  Call me.

You CAN Inspire!

This post was written by Katherine Connolly of Keeping HR_Simple on 19th August 2010
http://www.keepinghrsimple.co.uk/

Over 100 people listened to Richard McCann talking in the Cambridge Cancer Help Centre last night and many of us were moved by what he had to say. I have heard messages like these before – “you can do it”, “get out of your comfort zone”, “challenge yourself”. I’ve never once thought they applied to me. I’ve never once felt personally affected by any of them. For me, the speakers and writers were always talking to someone else. They didn’t apply to me because I didn’t want to feel challenged. I didn’t want to leave my comfort zone, thanks very much. I never wanted to release my potential because as far as I was concerned, maybe I didn’t have any. I’d rather not try than do it and fail.

I’ve never once felt personally affected by any of them.

Last night, Richard’s message got to me. I believe that things happen for a reason (Jason always says that things don’t just happen, things happen just) and that the time was right for me to get that message and what’s more, to act on it. Until we started this business, I was a PA.  A very good PA, thanks very much. I went to work every day, stayed in the office, acted as the central point of contact for everyone and everything. If someone wanted to know where something was, guess who they came to? If someone wanted help or advice or to pass on a bit of gossip, guess who they talked to first? I knew everything that was going on and I was very comfortable. My feet were firmly under the table there and I loved it all; the job, the company and the people.

I’ve learnt that I’m capable of much more than I think I am.

Now I know that I was missing out. Doing that job was fulfilling maybe 1/10th of my potential. If even that. I’ve learnt so much in the last year but mostly I’ve learnt about myself. I’ve learnt that I’m capable of much more than I think I am. I’ve learnt that I can go out and talk to people – people I’ve never met before. I’ve learnt that I can survive difficult situations. I’ve learnt that I have a way to go before I could call myself a good public speaker. But I’ve tried it and I’m willing to keep trying it. I may never be as good a speaker as Richard McCann but I have the potential to be. I’ll never dye my hair ginger though – I don’t want to be an honorary member of “the ginger massive” . Most importantly of all, I’ve learnt that if I say “no” to the things that scare me or worry me or make me feel uncomfortable, I’m missing out. So, thank you to Richard McCann for bringing that message home to me. People probably tell you all the time how you’ve affected their lives but you should know how you’ve affected mine. Richard McCann

Can you forgive easily?

How easy do you find it to forgive?

This post was written by Ellee Seymour on 18th August 2010

http://elleeseymour.com/

I met Richard McCann this evening and, like the entire audience at The Inspired Group , sat mesmerised as he told us his devastating life story and described how he had overcome one major personal catastrophe after another. Being born with ginger hair was another one of life’s challenge he was forced to face, he joked with us to lighten the mood as his story was dark and haunting.

The colour of his hair certainly paled into insignificance compared to the trauma of being the young son of Wilma McCann , the first of 13 women murdered by the Yorkshire Ripper in 1975, a week before his sixth birthday. A fairly horrendous life followed which forced Richard to lie about the true nature of his mother’s death to Army comrades, culminating with a spell in jail as a drugs dealer, and a desperate struggle to get back on his feet after his release so he would not lose his home.

The theme of Richard’s motivational “I can” speech, which he gives around the country in schools, prisons and to business groups, is to make us believe that even the worst situations in life can have positive outcomes if you focus on them, rather than the negative.  He wants to inspire people and give them self-belief – and counsels others who have lost loved ones in violent situations – using his early wretched life with a brutal father and his unhappy experiences as an example of  this.

His dramatic life story and how he coped with his personal tragedies has been described in his moving best seller, “Just A Boy: The True Story of a Stolen Childhood.” Thankfully, the story has a happy ending as Richard is now blissfully married to a midwife with three adorable ginger haired kids! But that is not the end of the story.

I sense that his real happiness came from being able to forgive – first of all his father for the misery he caused to his family, and then, most surprisingly, forgiving Peter Sutcliffe for the murder of his mother. This happened after he heard Archbishop Desmond Tutu speak at the Forgiveness Project charity which explores forgiveness, reconciliation and conflict resolution through real-life human experience of which he is patron. Afterwards, Richard managed to catch up with Desmond Tutu before he left and told him that he was now able to forgive Peter Sutcliffe who had stabbed his mother 14 times. The two men hugged, and I imagine there were tears following such a huge release and acknowledgement, something 99% of people in his situation could never do.

Richard is an amazing, powerful speaker. He left us all speechless and humbled. His mum would be so proud.

Do you find it easy to forgive?

Are you an influencer or a manipulator?

Audience by Adam Hawkins http://anodiseproductions.com

How influential are you? (really?)

I got into trouble recently because I was having a rant (as I do from time to time) about people making a fuss about how influential they are on Twitter according to a dubious tool called Klout, (which, incidentally, recently gave a perfect 100 score to a celebrity I’ve never heard of who had had an account for only a week).

What got me going was this whole idea of ‘influence’.

You see, in my book, and that other more famous one, the dictionary, to influence means to be a compelling force on the behaviour or opinions of others.

Now, I am often entertained, informed and helped and sometimes, even provoked and infuriated by people on Twitter but I don’t think I’m often influenced by them to the extent that I’ll change my opinions or alter my behaviour.

Do you make a difference?

Getting excited about being recognised as an ‘influencer’ is understandable. Most of us want to make a difference in our own way and using social networks to influence behaviour and opinions has worked really well in a number of cases like the backlash against The X Factor at Christmas, the subversion of the Daily Mail ‘hate’ polls and most famously, the way emergency services were mobilised by Twitter participants in the plane in the Hudson crash.

However, in these cases it was the medium and the viral nature of the message that was important and not the person who started the campaign.

Becoming a real influencer takes more than gathering followers, fans or arbitrary scores. It’s not about the transitory nature of celebrity or seeming popularity but about establishing a reputation and becoming the person that others turn to when they want information they know they can trust.

In business, its probably the most valuable thing we can achieve but influencers don’t set out to deliberately become influencers, its something that happens as a by product of the ‘real’ work they do, when others start to seek them out or recommend them and they gain very little from it directly.

Are you an influencer or a manipulator?

When someone asks your opinion do you give it honestly or are you afraid of upsetting people? Do you only give your best when you are being paid for it?  Do you deliberately build a large following so that you can brag about it and use it to your own advantage? (This is the opposite of building a following organically because people are interested in what you have to say.) Do you do deals for commission before recommending a product or service? If so, you’re a manipulator rather than a real influencer.

If you feel the need to try and measure your influence, you’ve already lost the plot. If you need to shout about it on a social network that touches a tiny fraction of the 6 billion people on the planet, there’s no hope.

Influence is about the number of people who trust your opinion, not the number of people you collect and those who join social networks as a vanity exercise are missing not only the point but most of the fun.

Blogging Business for Beginners

This is aimed at beginners who would like to blog for business

What is a Blog?

A blog (from web log) is a web page that contains short articles, known as posts, on a variety of subjects. The most recent one appears at the top of the list. Each post has its own unique url that you get by clicking on the title of the post so you can send links to specific posts.

The blogger can set up categories that each post can be linked to, e.g. events, workshops, mentoring, so that a reader can quickly see all the posts in one category.  Blogs in Plain English is a great little video that explains what a blog is.

Why Blog?

Work out what you want your blog to do for your business. Make it part of your marketing strategy and assess its effect.

These are some of the reasons to blog for business

• attract potential clients
• show your expertise
• reveal the personality behind you business
• comment on events you’ve experienced
• publish articles you’ve written
• form the content of newsletters
• discuss industry practice
• initiate discussions
• get good SEO ranking
• drive traffic to your website

Blogging Platforms.

There are over 40 blogging platforms to choose from. The most popular for business are Bloggerand WordPress.

There are four options to choose from:

1. Free themes (templates) and free hosting are supplied by both Blogger.com and WordPress.comand are the simplest way to get started. However, your blog title will contain the words Blogspot or WordPress rather than a unique domain name so assess if this is the right impression for your business. If you are expecting a lot of traffic these options won’t support it.

2. Free themes and separate (paid for) hosting gives the opportunity for a unique domain name e.g. http://www.annhawkins.com At WordPress.org (different to WordPress.com) there are thousands of free themes to choose from.

3. Paid for themes and paid for hosting give extra functions and flexibility for serious bloggers.

4. Customised themes and flexible hosting packages offer the most flexibility and create a business like appearance with art work matched to your branding, several mail boxes, email addresses and high band width for high volumes of traffic. They also offer ongoing support and training. See Ian McKendrick’s http://killerseosuperblogs.com/ for these packages.

What to write about?

There are only three rules here: be entertaining, useful or interesting.

Having strong opinions and creating a little controversy to generate debate is no bad thing either!

Know your target readers and write for them.

Subjects:

How to …..
Top ten tips to …..
Industry trends
Trade shows/conferences
Help sheets
Competitions / surveys
Profiles of industry leaders / customers / employees
Your response to current events that affect your readers

If you don’t like writing, create a video blog. A flipcam from Amazon costs about £130 and comes with all the connections to plug straight into your computer. Sound and pictures are excellent quality.

You can embed video into your blog or website or create your own YouTube Channel to which people can subscribe. Add keywords to the descriptions and it will rank higher than almost any other content onGoogle.

How to get readers.

Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are just some of the ways to direct people to your blog. However they each attract a different type of person so you need to work out which is the best channel for YOUR business. You also need to establish relationships with people before they’ll take any interest in your blog and use the same entertain, inform or be interesting rules. Popping in once a week with “New blog update” and a link will have the opposite effect to the one you need to create.

When you’ve got readers, keep them. Invite them to sign up for future updates and you’ll build a mailing list of interested people.

Invite Comments. At the end of each post ask a question and invite comments. Back links from other people’s websites are great for SEO.

Invite Guest Bloggers and offer to be a guest blogger to attract new readers.

SEO Overview.

If your website has a good Google ranking there is no need to host your blog on your website. If it is a new site a blog will help it to get ranked more quickly. Having a blog and website with different urls will give you twice as many chances to get in the top SEO rankings.
WordPress.org blogs have a plug in (a parcel of code that customizes your blog) called “All in one SEO pack” that enables many SEO friendly features.
Other SEO tricks are to use keywords in the post title and the text, use Paragraph headings rather than a large font and use alternative text for pictures.

What were your experiences as a blogging beginner?

How would you advise other people to get started? Share your comments below.

How to avoid being boring

Red Chimneys by Adam Hawkins http://anodizeproductions.com

Ask questions.

That’s it.

Ask questions, listen to the answers and ask some more questions.

Its not about you.

Do you need tea and sympathy?

Image from www.bigtomatocompany.com

Oh dear, poor you. You’re having a hard time, your business isn’t going well and life is so unfair and you have a lot to deal with.

This sympathy is free, there’s no obligation to return it and it’s offered in all sincerity. I’d offer you some tea to go with it but I can see you’ve already had lots.

Now, how do you feel? Understood and supported? Good.

But here you are still feeling bad and I can see that every time someone asks you how things are you feel that pain all over again. Could it be that the more you focus on your difficulties the worse you make yourself feel?

Anyway, that’s more than enough sympathy now. What you need is some encouragement.

Your business doesn’t have any emotions. It responds to action. Take the right actions and your business will flourish. Expect it to sit and wait for you to ‘feel like’ taking action and it won’t.

If fear has you in its frozen grip, sympathy won’t get you out of it. Even the tea won’t melt it. Only action has any effect.

If you can’t think straight, DO something.

Consistent action, doing the right things at the right time, is what gets us what we want but until you figure out the right things to do, do something anyway. Action has a 50% chance of getting the right result. Inaction has none.

I’m sorry you’re feeling bad. Really I am but what are you DOING to change things?

Twitter Business for Beginners

Can you really get business from Twitter?

“Yes you can, and this is how.”

Business Basics

Twitter can do what every business owner wants and needs: it can allow you to listen to what potential clients and customers are looking for, need and think and it can be the means by which you connect with them directly as individuals and create rewarding relationships. In Twitter terms you ‘follow’ the people you want to listen to and attract the people you want to talk to as your “followers” (more of this later).

Ignore media Reports

You probably need to ignore most of the media reports about Twitter which are either focused on celebrities and totally irrelevant or intent on rubbishing a new media that threatens the established ways of reporting world events. Neither of these viewpoints has much to do with using Twitter for business.

Getting started is easy

If you haven’t already got a Twitter account go to www.twitter.com and follow the instructions. Do write down the password you use for your account as you’ll need this for all sorts of applications that come later. It is essential to personalize your profile. Use your own name rather than a company name but make it short, simple and memorable.

First impressions count and you will be recognised both on-line and in face to face meetings from your avatar picture so its really important to use a good one (close up head shot is best) and don’t change it too often. People form relationships with people not companies so don’t use a company logo.

Include a link to your web site or blog but also some information that is not just about business. For the same reason make sure you turn off the “Protect Updates” option. There is no point in using any social networks if your aim is to be private. Lighting a beacon fire or using semaphore is likely to be more private than any communication via the internet.

On your Twitter home page is a menu bar where you can change your profile and settings and “Find People”. Use this tab to enter in the names of people you know are already on Twitter or people that you are interested in. Click on the “follow” tab to add them to the list of people whose conversation you will be able to see. Their “tweets” will start appearing in a “stream” on you home page. If you find them boring or irrelevant you can click on their profile and “unfollow” them whenever you like.

On the right of your home page is a search box. Enter a particular subject or area you are interested in and this will bring up a list of “tweets” that have mentioned it. You can decide whether or not to follow any of those people depending on how interesting you find them. Another way to find people to follow is to use www.twellow.com (the Twitter Yellow pages) www.tweepsearch.com is another way to find people based on keywords in their bio.

You may find that some of the people you follow will follow you back or random people will find you. You will get an email to let you know who they are. If any of these look like spam accounts or have content that you find distasteful (remember Twitter is completely uncensored) you can use the “block” facility. No-one knows if they’ve been blocked or by whom. It just means that you won’t see their tweets and they won’t see yours.

Sending your first tweet

To send your first tweet type something in the box at the top of the page – max 140 characters. This will go to all the people who have already decided to follow you. What you’ll see on your home page now is a stream of tweets for the people you are following. Hover over the right of the message and two symbols will appear. The star enables you to store that tweet for later in the “favorites” on your Twitter homepage. To reply to that tweet click on the shooting arrow. This will put an @ symbol in the text box with the twittername of the person you are replying to. Type your message and send. Your tweet will be seen by that person and also by everyone else who is following both of you.

When you see a conversation or a comment that interests you, just join in. They are public not private and most people are happy to hear new comments. It’s sometimes hard to follow conversations because people dip in and out but don’t let that bother you. Anything really interesting will probably come round again. Think of it like a party in a big house – you can’t join in every conversation at the same time.

If you want to send a private message to someone (not often necessary) use the Direct Message (DM) option on the right hand menu bar. You can see all the DMs you’ve sent and received on this page. You can also see all the replies that have your @twittername in them. Always try to reply to these as they’re from people who are talking to you or about you!

What to tweet about

Join in as many conversations as possible, establish relationships, be as interesting as possible and your number of followers will build. Unless you are really, really funny or the circumstances are exceptional please spare us weather reports, your tea making habits, ablutions, TV viewing and health reports. Think about standing in a room full of people – would you spew out quotes or endlessly repeat everything that others are saying? I hope not!

As with all networking you need to get to know people before you start selling. A subtle link to a subject on your blog or website will start to build an interest in what you do but if you blast out sales messages or are just plain boring you’ll lose followers pretty quickly.

When you get a really interesting tweet or a request for help, for example: “anyone know a great packaging company/hotel/printer?” etc., you can re-tweet the message using the re-tweet button.  You’ll build a lot of goodwill and friends by re-tweeting. A good strategy is to send as many tweets as possible that other people think are worthwhile re-tweeting. Some people seem to think that if they re-tweet the millions of inspirational quotes that come their way their name will get re-tweeted too but if they’re not original or really funny you’ll just bore and annoy your followers and lose them.

Remember that the people you are interacting with aren’t virtual people. They are real people in a virtual meeting place so behave as you would if they were in the same room as you and treat them with respect.

Some people use a system called autofollow which means if someone follows you, you automatically follow them back and if they unfollow you, you automatically unfollow them. This is generally only used by people who care more about the numbers than the quality of the people they follow. It’s easy to get thousands of followers if you choose to follow thousands of people but you are probably following a lot of automated accounts that just spew out sales messages rather than having meaningful conversations with people. Its better to choose who you follow by looking at their profile. If I get an automated Direct Message (DM) I generally unfollow that account as I’m not interested in anyone who treats me like a number instead of an individual.

There are lots of scams offering ways to get more followers but these often link to automated systems that take over your account so treat anything like that with extreme caution.

That’s the basics covered and I’d recommend you spend a few minutes every day getting comfortable with those and build your followers before looking at what else is going on.

Beyond the basics

You’ll find that people on Twitter talk about the best way to use it, the various applications and options and send out links to guides and tips. This is the easiest way to learn about all the various ways that have developed, usually independently of Twitter, to make it even better. If you see someone doing something or using an application you’re interested in, just ask them how to do the same.

A couple of the most popular free applications to keep track of your account are TweetDeck www.tweetdeck.com and Hootsuite www.hootsuite.com which allows you to arrange your twitter stream into groups. You can group together people whose tweets you definitely don’t want to miss so that they all appear in one column. You can see all the tweets that mention you in a separate column. All remaining tweets will just stream past in another column and you can dip in and out of those conversations as you choose.

There are various other applications for PCs, Macs and mobile phones. You can use some mobile phones to tweet messages and photographs http://twitpic.com The best way to find out about these is to listen to others, experiment & play until you find what suits you.

One of the easiest and quickest ways to get more business using Twitter is to have a blog that is configured to update Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networks whenever you post a new entry. As long as the blog subjects are of interest to your followers they will RT these links and lots of people will visit your blog and help you to build a reputation as an expert in your field and make you easier to find on Google and other search engines. One of the easiest ways to do this is to use www.killerseosuperblogs.com

There are lots of useful tools at www.tweetlater.com including setting up automated tweets and numerous analytical tools at www.twitteranalyzer.com. Again, use these with caution or your will either bore people or annoy them and lose followers.

How it works for me

I have been using Twitter since January 2008 and choose the people I follow very carefully. Because much of my business is local I started out by selecting local business owners and connecting with people I already know.
However, I quickly found and joined in some really interesting conversations about things that are nothing to do with my business and started following and being followed by a wide variety of people from different countries that include writers, artists, journalists, photographers, musicians and TV producers. I’ve learned a lot, expanded my interests, made friends and laughed so much that at times I couldn’t see to type.

I’ve built my business connections because all of these people are connected to others who have been drawn into the conversations. I’ve been invited to write for other people’s blogs and I’ve had blog posts re-tweeted by people who have no interest in my business but because they’ve grown to like me they promote me to their followers and I do the same for them. As a result I’ve had more people attend my workshops, mastermind groups and other events and I am building a reputation that goes way beyond the local people that I regularly do business with. I’ve also been invited to join and contribute to a private international discussion group of people who value my business ideas.
As all this activity is free, the only investment is my time which is a lot less than any efforts I could have made to get my business known by so many people.

I only ever tweet from my PC, never from my phone and I’ve never posted a twitpic.  I use TweetDeck and HootSuite as I find they both have features that are useful. I follow about 900 people and am followed by about 2,000 people. However, the people who are following me have between them hundreds of thousands of followers so the number of people I am able to reach goes way beyond my own account. My account is a small one by many Twitter standards but it’s manageable and gives me great results.

If you’d like to know more about using Twitter I’d be very happy to help. Just email me or send me a Tweet  http://twitter.com/AnnHawkins/

This article was first published in Aug 09 and updated in June 2010

You can’t be good at everything

Repeat after me:

Do big goals lead to big success?

"No Hands" by Adam Hawkins http://anodizeproductions.com

Should you set big fat hairy audacious goals or stick to the reasonable, more easily achieved variety?

Many interviews with highly successful people reveal that they set themselves huge goals, fired by a burning desire to achieve something specific and that these goals determine their direction and purpose in life and colour all their decisions and actions.

They also freely admit that when they set these goals it’s usually without any clear idea of how to achieve them.

What they do have however,  is an unwavering belief that they CAN.

What happens is that when a goal excites you enough, you start to live every day in a way that makes it possible to achieve it and obstacles don’t seem so daunting. Setting reasonable goals rarely leads to that sense of excitement so there isn’t the same incentive to overcome obstacles and the goals  just becomes another “so what?”

All great achievements begin with an idea, a want, a longing, a desire.

While she was still Posh Spice, Victoria Adams said she wanted to be “more famous than Persil”. As Mrs Victoria Beckham she got her desire but many of our wants and longings never get past the wishing and dreaming stage.

If you’ve ever had your dream laughed at, if you’ve been told to ‘get real’, keep your feet on the floor, your shoulder to the wheel and your nose to the grindstone (ouch!) you’ve probably let go of that dream and it may now be just a vague longing.

How would you feel if you re-ignited that flame? What’s stopping you from blowing on the coals of your burning desire and setting off on an adventure of achievement?

My guess is, that interfering with your thinking, your determination and your belief is a very small word called FEAR.  It may be fear of failure, fear of success or simply a series of “what if’s?”

Fear is a tricky emotion. Most of the people who have achieved big fat hairy audacious goals say that the magnitude of what they were trying to achieve scared them – but they did it anyway.

If you knew that you could not possibly fail, what would you attempt?

On June 16th in Cambridge, Andy Gibney will be leading an interactive session on “How to set and achieve audacious goals and create a sense of purpose. Details here >>

If you can’t be there, join in the debate by telling us your views here – it would be great to know what you think – especially if you have a big fat hairy audacious goal!