Getting out of the (home) office

I took up running recently and joined a club. Now, I’m pretty much hooked on it. Running has all the advantages one would expect: fitness, weight loss and general sense of well-being. One distinct advantage that I hadn’t expected though, is how sociable it is (provided you join a club of course).

My business model is one of self employment, supported by a network of associates. It’s working extremely well for me. It keeps costs and admin time to a minimum, and a small but varied and trusted associate listing maximises my service offering to clients. What it does not do however, is provide me with the day to day social interaction that most people get at the office.

More and more people are deciding to work from home (either becoming self-employed or to simply maximise their quality work time) and the advantages of this are very clear. Less time spent in traffic along with increased flexibility about when you work are likely to be top of everyone’s list of work preferences. However, the effects on your social life can be negative. Work colleagues provide a great outlet for work related discussions and if you don’t have them it’s easy to ‘dump’ this on your nearest and dearest (who is also probably hoping to relax and unwind after a hard day at the office).

Going for a run helps me to mentally let go of this need to talk through my day – the physical exertion just distracts me. And having a relaxed (albeit breathless!) chat with fellow runners reminds me that there is life outside the day-to-day demands of work and family life.

So, if you find you need an outlet for the pressures of your home-working day, buy yourself a pair of trainers and hit the pavement, park or track. It will do you a world of good and you’ll soon notice positive knock on effects on your working day through feeling more alert, positive and energetic.

What else do you do to make up for the lack of an office-based social life or pressure valve?

When Market Research Reveals An Ugly Truth: Breathe A Sigh Of Relief

What do you want from market research? Ideally confirmation – of your expectations for the future development of your business.

More often than not, this is what happens. Your instinct and market knowledge has served you well: the segment does hold potential, their business idea is competitive, and the market value is significant.

Sometimes however, this isn’t the case. Here’s an example of where it all went wrong, and when the ugly truth was revealed.

The story so far

Company X was expanding its existing business to the UK market. Management had estimated ten thousand units as their market size, and all were strong potential sales for them. They built a sales and marketing strategy, and were beginning to action these, when a stakeholder recommended formal market research.

Problems revealed

We carried out a thorough market research and analysis exercise. Our conclusions when reporting back to the client were (in a nutshell):

• Market size figures were significantly overestimated: your market size is no more than two thousand five hundred (just 25% of the original estimate of ten thousand).
• Yes there is demand for your product in the UK marketplace: customers have expressed a strong interest in it
• Pricing must be keen, as the economic recession has focused customers on looking for the most cost effective services.

Quick thinking and innovation

While the bad news about their market size estimates was indeed that – very bad news – the company re-adjusted its plans accordingly. The initial shock and dismay quickly turned to positive thinking about how close they’d come to a really bad decision.

This company took on board the realities that market research revealed, and acted quickly. They were nimble and innovative enough to get back to basics, create an alternative business model for their company and change direction.

So what seemed like a disaster when they read our research quickly turned into a new opportunity. And what could have been a disaster was averted through research.

What do you expect from market research? Have you ever started a business with unrealistic expectations of your market or are you an effective market research user?

Go on, Klok yourself!

A couple of weeks ago someone told me about Klok - since then it's proved to be one of those little things that can completely change the way I work. It's improved my productivity, my motivation and my concentration. And it's free. How's that for over-delivering!

Klok is a simple calendar-like tool that anyone can download (the lite version is free) and begin to use within minutes. Here are the main features:

- Users set up a list of projects that you typically spend time on during the day (proposal work, meetings, blogging, tweeting, or client work). The kind of work you do depends on whether you're employed or self employed, but your list of projects is completely up to you.

- When you begin work just select one of these from a drop down list and Klok begins to time you.

- A small bar floats on whatever you're using (Web, Word, email, whatever) so you know you're being timed. This visual reminder ensures that you Klok off whenever you pick up the phone, pop out for a coffee or browse Facebook etc).

- At the end of the day, look at the day view to see how many hours you've actually spent working, and on what.

I've discovered that the few minutes I spend taking breaks or talking to friends can amount to an alarming amount of time in each day. I've also discovered that clock watching works for me, it motivates me and I feel driven to rack up as many quality hours as I possibly can in each day.

Delivering absolute quality on each client project means that I refuse to count an hour or minute that wasn't spent on their project, or that wasn't productive quality time. (Seth Godin calls it 'shipping' - getting the job done, and getting it done really well). Klok now allows me to time my work accurately, and now my clients can be assured that the time they're paying me for is 100% quality, with absolutely no distractions. It also allows me to understand when I've gone over the allocated project time, and to make an informed decision on what do if this happens.

Now, what I 'ship' is the product of completely focussed expertise, and knowing this motivates me.

It won't work for everyone, but if you think you'll like it, try it. And get ready to increase your productivity, motivation and enjoyment of the day you spend at work. www.getklok.com

Facing up to Facebook (for business)

Why not face up to Facebook with me?
If you don't already have a page go ahead and follow Step 1 and 2 below - we'll move along together. Post comments here and hopefully we can help each other out along the way.

I was fasincated to read on SimplyZesty's blog post recently that their Facebook (FB) page is their most successful tool for attracting readers to their blog and in turn, new business. The SimplyZesty blog has brought in over 80% of their business as a social media marketing agency.

To quote: "a whopping 18% of our traffic now comes through Facebook. That’s a fifth of our traffic or 200,000 uniques a year that we have coming from Facebook alone."

Impressive stuff. What was really interesting was to read their review of Twitter's usefulness (or lack of): "People obsess with Twitter as a traffic driving tool but here is a little secret for you that will surprise you…..It contributes 1.3% of our overall traffic. That’s tiny!"

Now I follow SimplyZesty on Twitter and they don't actually tweet very much. Certainly not as much as they blog (twice a day - very impressive!) In my opinion, this could help account for the low referral number, rather than Twitter as a channel overall.

However, given that Simply Zesty reached half a million blog readers in just 6 months, we need to pay heed to these statistics!

Having gotten up and running with Twitter (at long last), I'm now giving Facebook a try, and will post here over the next few weeks about how I'm getting on. Ideally, this will help you to set up your own Facebook presence easily and quickly, and start getting a good response. My mistakes will prevent yours, hopefully!


For the moment, here's the report on Phase 1:

I'm a regular enough FB personal user. I have a personal profile which I update every few weeks, and I log on regularly, mostly due a fascination to see what my friends have been up to, and to see photos of their exploits, their kids etc.

So I thought, getting a business FB presence should be quick and easy - as I'm used to using the personal interface the business side should be an easy learning curve.

Boy was I wrong!


Step 1:

Business users need a FB 'page' - a 'profile' is for personal users. There are rules about how to promote your FB page using your personal profile so be careful, and check them out. You risk losing your entire profile if you break the rules. Here's the FB guide to business pages.

I've used the link on the home page to set up a 'page' and this is linked to my personal profile. So now I have a basic page (which looks and feels very similar to my personal profile), complete with my logo, and a link to my blog posts.

However, I found the whole process a little illogicial - shouldn't I set up my page completely separately from my profile? Apparently not.


Step 2:

I want to promote my FB page but to do that I need the short URL: www.facebook.com/knowledgeworks. I'm assuming I will be able to use this to point people directly to my business presence rather than having to go via my personal profile. I don't want my personal profile to be visible to my business connections (as I'm guessing most people wouldn't). Currently I can't find any way to access by business page other than via my profile, so hopefully having a dedicated username will do the trick.

The FB rules say that I need at least 25 friends before they will allocate my username and give me that short URL. So that's the next step. I'll post again once I've reached that 25.


Problems so far

I can't figure out how to log directly in to my Facebook page (I'm currently logging into my profile and accessing it from there). Perhaps this option will appear once I've gotten my username.


More to follow soon.

To Tweet or not to Tweet? The KnowledgeWorks Journey...

Regular readers will know that I posted a few times earlier this year about Twitter. How to get started, using it regularly, and some of the more sophisiticated features.

I held off from giving my final opinion on how worthwhile Twitter is until now. This is because it takes months to get value from it.

And that's the first point I need to make: Twitter takes weeks and weeks of effort before becoming completely comfortable with it, and before building a good presence. It's essential that you allocate plenty of time for Twitter, particularly in the early days. As you build up more and more followers (and followees), and as you tweet more, and re-tweet, you'll eventually start to see a return on your effort.

Thankfully I'm now over the early stages of:

- searching out relevant people to follow
- reading up about them on their websites to make sure it's worth my while following them, and
- reading endless tweets (usually entitled "10 tips to Using Social Media for business" or similar)

I take time every few weeks to actively seek out new people to follow, but mostly for now its just regular checks on what's being posted and sharing information with my followers.

What's the verdict?

Well, (within the caveat of the huge amount of time necessary to spend first on getting to know Twitter) here it is:

• Twitter is a great way to network online, and to meet lots more people who are relevant to my business
• Twitter holds a wealth of valuable information: reading just a few of the daily links to great articles or posts helps build my own expertise rapidly
• Twitter allows me to share valuable information I've come across with my network. This might be referring a business colleague, promoting a training course, or pointing to a well-written and informative blog or article. [Much easier than heading off on a dark and rainy Monday night to a networking event in town (tho face to face has great value too of course)]
• Finally, Twitter has helped me to build my own online brand. It's an essential facet of the online marketing strategy of any business which hopes to connect with people online. My website is a useful starting point, but now people expect more: and building relationships, offering help and exchanging learning points through Twitter is a great way to deliver more.

Has Twitter driven sales for me?

The answer is Yes, and No.

No because I don't think anyone has gone online in the last six months, and actively looked through Twitter for a researcher such as myself.

However, what Twitter has done for me is to 'help' my sale. My business has a stronger profile through Twitter. People see my tweets and learn more about me. They are reassured about my expertise through the content I tweet. And they feel more confident that my business practice and processess are up to date, relevant and professional. I know that I've won several projects in the last few months, with the help of Twitter.

OVERALL: After nearly 6 months of testing, I would advise most businesses to use Twitter, if they can commit the time.

So, are you Twitter-phobic or a Twitterphile? Would you agree with my verdict? Is there a les time-consuming way to get the benefits of Twitter?

The last of the professional networks: Ecademy, Doostang, and SmallBusinessCan

Ecademy

This is a UK based site, with a third of members based there. The company itself says it has 12 million contacts, with 300,000+ unique users per month. However, independent sources give this figures as being just 400,000.

Nearly two-thirds of Ecademy users are self employed, indicating that many may be looking for project work, as well as pure networking opportunities.

There is a lot of irrelevant functionality on Ecademy which makes it difficult to navigate. Its layout is quite different to other online networks and overall it’s not very user friendly. If you’re looking to build your network in the UK, then this is a useful site – otherwise it doesn’t have much else to offer.


Doostang

This is a US based career building community. Membership is by invitation only, and it targets graduates from the top US universities. A hefty monthly fee (c. $40) allows these members to access job advertisements. Not a useful networking tool then, but interesting to see a niche like this developing.


Small Business Can

At last, an Irish based site, filled with Irish based members who are keen to maintain active discussions and network!

Sponsored by Ulster Bank, this site has an impressive team running the show, so we’re hoping for continued success as the site develops.

Essentially, the site is all about driving business growth. It has resources, blogs and community discussions to drive this. The site is littered with comments and inputs from members, so it’s interesting to view what other members have been saying. The look and feel is great, and functionality includes a forum for discussions, apps, groups etc.

While the site is still in development phase, with some sections awaiting content, it does have the potential to be a successful and active Irish networking site. Let’s wait and see.

...
That's it for now on online professional networks folks! I hope this guide has helped you to save some time and get the most that these have to offer.

More on professional networks: Ryze, Viadeo, Plaxo and Naymz

In my last post I selected a few (so-called) online professional networks and reviewed them. Here are some more: some useful, some not. This is not an exhaustive list, as these sites are constantly popping up. However, I will try to guide you through the dross to find the ones that work!

Ryze

This is a business networking site, and its functionality is similar to that of LinkedIn. It’s quite un-sophisticated though, and has only around 300,000 members, most of whom are US based. This site doesn’t seem to be going anywhere: although it’s been around a long time the look and feel are quite boring, and its offering is fairly limited. For these reasons, I won’t be using it.


Viadeo

This is an excellent site (which along with Xing) could prove a viable competitor to LinkedIn, particularly in Europe. It has a very strong presence in France, and acquired a network in Canada last year, bringing its member numbers to 25 million.

It charges fees of around €6 monthly for premium membership. The structure is very simple: users get access to all areas with premium membership, including contacting other members.

In late 2009, the Economist reported: “Last year LinkedIn had struck a deal with Apec, France's best-known professional-recruitment service, to offer search functions to its huge customer base of over 30,000 companies and 500,000 executives. But on November 17th Apec made a new deal with Viadeo, having noted that although LinkedIn could reach executives at France's biggest international companies, it failed to connect enough people in the country's thousands of smaller firms…

In Italy and Japan, LinkedIn is number one even though it has not translated its site into the local language in either place. In China, however, LinkedIn has to compete against the Chinese-language website of Tianji, the country's biggest professional network, which is owned by Viadeo.”


Plaxo

Plaxo sells itself as being an address book in the cloud. It has been around for some time: the company itself says it has 40 million members, although recent press reports quote 20 million. It launched ‘Plaxo Pulse’ (a true online networking site) but following its lack of success, Pulse has been rebranded and toned down to ‘Stream’ – which shows web-wide activity of a user’s contacts. Its functionality is mostly aimed at working with existing contacts and so it’s not useful for networking.


Naymz

Naymz is a little different from other networking sites in that it offers tools focussed on reputation, personal branding and identify verification. There is emphasis on the truth of the information on a profile, and members receive points on a reputation score dashboard.

Having said all that, Naymz has a slightly dubious reputation for being simply a scraper site that pulls names from other sites. Naymz appear to be completely US based, so will be of limited value to European-side networkers, especially at a basic fee of €25 monthly.