How to be happier: start your own business

by: Rebecca

June 7th, 2010

A recent comprehensive study has proven that occupation is the primary ingredient of happiness. Even in times of recession the business owner has been shown to be the happiest of all occupations.

A top Harvard study claims that happiness comes from having the following elements in your life, reading through them it’s clear to see how running your own business helps fulfill many of these particulars:

 

·       Understanding you deserve happiness

·       Having control

·       Surrounding yourself with positive people

·       Problem solving instead of wallowing in self pity

·       Spending time each day doing something for yourself 

Humor and health also appeared as important factors. 

In a study of how occupation affects happiness, business owners came out on top.

Occupation Overall well-being
Business Owner 72.5
Professional 71.5
Manager/Executive 70.9
Farming/Forestry 67.8
Sales 67.6
Clerical 66.1
Construction 65.0
Installation 64.4
Service 64.0
Transportation 62.6
Manufacturing 62.1

Source: Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index

It’s great to know that we are in a business that actually serves in making people happier. We are here not only to form companies but to support starting your business.

What more incentive do you need to get things started today?

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Lies, damned lies and lies from marketers

by: Hannah

June 4th, 2010

Has a marketing company ever told you they can guarantee you ‘top rank in Google’?

It’s one of the most common phrases in marketing, and it’s very popular with salespeople, mostly because it’s one of those terms that isn’t technically a lie, but certainly doesn’t mean what you think it does.

What you mean by ‘top rank’ is being the first entry for a popular term that describes what you do, but what the salesperson means is being the first entry for a search term that won’t cost them very much money – regardless of whether people are actually searching for it or not.

For example, being ranked first for “inexpensive apparel” doesn’t have the impact of being ranked first for “cheap clothing”, because no-one’s going to be searching the first term anyway.

Everyone wants top ranking in search engines, but top rank for a random term that no-one ever searches isn’t going to get you more business – and that’s the whole point of paying out for marketing in the first place.

An honest online marketer won’t promise you ‘top ranking’, because it’s a meaningless phrase. What you really need from a marketer is a guarantee that they will work to find the most useful terms for your business, terms that balance the cost of the click against the business it brings you.

So beware of marketers promising you top ranking. They might not be lying, but they’re coming damned close.

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Have you ever imagined your boss naked?

by: Rebecca

June 3rd, 2010

Bare management

Bare management

According to a study for Sky TV nearly 50% of us have imagined our boss naked. I can honestly say that I do not fall into that category, justifiably, because my dad is my boss!

We are often advised to imagine our interviewers naked or a naked audience during a nerve wrecking presentation to ease the stress .  I am suggesting that a truly empathetic management will incorporate some of the following  bare essentials of naked management:

Are you decent?

Keeping cool

Naked management involves keeping cool under stressful situations. Your staff  need to know that they can rely on you to sort any challenges. If you are stressed your team will become  stressed.

Looking good in the mirror

Make sure you are upbeat and positive. Staff will mirror their boss’s behaviour. 

Courage

To be a naked manager you need real courage to delegate and allow your staff to make important decisions. Allowing them to make mistakes is also vital for learning. It’s important that they have their own responsibilities and can clearly see how they contribute and fit into the picture. 

Expose yourself

Your team needs to know that you will really listen to them and take all concerns very seriously. Allow them to feel they can approach you by taking an interest in their lives and sharing things about your own personal life. 

Weight issues

Does my bum look big? Praise, recognition and even more praise. Your team shouldn’t have to wonder what you think of them or if you recognise their effort. Show your praise openly and do nice things for them.

Bare all

Don’t pretend to be someone you’re not, your staff will see through the bravado and distrust you. Openly admit to your mistakes and don’t be afraid of looking weak. Asking your staff for help/opinions will empower them and show you value their input. 

No hiding

Deal with issues immediately, you can delegate but you shouldn’t hide from confrontation. You will need to remind your guys that you are the ultimate decision maker from time to time. It really helps to have clear rules from the start so everybody knows what the boundaries are and you ensure that everybody is treated fairly. Our staff handbook is invaluable for setting out procedures and policy (we are constantly adding to it when a new situation presents itself).   

Not everyone is cut out to be the boss and as a business owner it’s important to recognise your strengths as well as weaknesses. You may need to consider employing a manager and conducting some naked interviews! 

Does anyone have any more naked management tips?

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What’s the next big thing?

by: Thomas

June 2nd, 2010

what's the next big thing“When we do X the business will be amazing”

I find myself saying this quite a lot.

Partially that’s because we get through a lot of X’s.

Partially it’s the instinctive desire to develop and progress as quickly as possible.

X’s include:

  • New offices
  • New staff
  • New marketing campaigns
  • New hardware / software
  • New products / prices

In a recent moment of clarity (ironically involving a modest quantity of alcohol) I realised that the next big thing is today.

I realised that I needed to stop thinking about what the businesses will be, and think about what they are.

That doesn’t mean abandoning the concept of working on the business and start working in the business (extra cheese please).

I think it just means that sometimes it’s important to view something as it is, not as it will be. This is called reality.

When you accept reality, you can share it confidently with the world (and to your staff, and to yourself).

When is it time to start marketing, discussing, delivering, promising and embracing?

It’s today. And it doesn’t matter if the business cards haven’t arrived yet.

If I were to use an analogy (I am famous for rubbish analogies) I’d say this:

Building a business is a bit like designing a racing car. There is always a way to make it faster, or more aerodynamic, but one day you just need to get in it and drive. That day is today.

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A Helping Hand Out

by: Peter

June 1st, 2010

So it looks like we can’t afford all the benefits and social services we have got used to having and even worse we will need even more of them as many of us grow older, lose our jobs and live further away from our families. Wirth our huge and growing national debt we need to find some radical solutions to these challenges, so here is one that occurred to me.

Before we had any of our current support services, people managed because they helped each other and no doubt some did it more than others but enough people did it because they believed they had to. We have lost much of that social conscience today and it seems to me very unlikely we can expect that to emerge as a solution to our needs any time soon.

It might however be possible to engineer it, after all we are willing to engineer or at least talk about engineering green taxation to protect the environment so why not a kind of social taxation. The idea is a new social tax that every working age adult has to contribute towards. Let’s say 8 hours worth of effort every month and you can chose either to pay social tax in money or in time. There is absolutely no reason why this should put anybody out of work because there is an almost limitless need for work to be done and the money raised from those who prefer to pay could pay wages to others with time to do more than their own 8 hour contribution.

One advantage of such a system would be to share the load equally and get everybody involved in meeting the needs of our common society. No doubt there are many who would try to avoid contributing and many more who could not get involved because of ill health or parenting responsibilities but by far the vast majority of working age people would be involved. It would have to be managed of course but we seem to be able to manage taxation already so we could manage this if we had the will to do it.

Sure this isn’t the only solution and maybe it’s too radical or just wouldn’t work for a million other reasons but it is an idea and we need ideas if we are going to solve problems. Perhaps you have a better one?

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