You may not think of your business as having a brand. It still does, regardless of whether you think so or not. Consider this for a moment: What do people say when they talk about you or your business? What feeling are they left with when they have done business with you? What are they thinking when they first discover ...

There are so many people I meet who have a Facebook page because, as they say, “everybody else has one …” OMG! Yes, it may help to build your profile, but only if you use it actively, engage people and have a plan for how to turn interest to enquiries to sales. Have you mapped it out for yourself yet? ...

OK, I admit to being a bit of a seminar junkie. My philosophy is that if I walk away from a seminar with just one great new insight, I’m ahead. Don’t overlook the networking potential when you attend events. You can meet people just like you—those who are building a business, seeking to get better. These are the people you ...

There’s hardly news in this statement, but too many people fail to do it. Think of a lawyer or PR consultant, they will often charge in 6 or 12-minute increments. The real trick is that in the next 12 minute increment you may only end up doing 8 minutes of client work. That will leave you a few minutes for ...

Always be on the lookout for better and smarter applications, for your smartphone, and for your computer. However, don’t introduce more than one new app one per month. Make sure you actually start using it—or decide not to before you ‘try’ the next thing, otherwise you’ll be wasting your time. This is an area where you cannot just follow your ...

The easy headline here would have been “get a Mac” (that’s what I used to say). I meet very few successful entrepreneurs, speakers or experts who don’t have one. But it’s not for everyone. If you spent 25 years in front of a WinTel machine, and you’re still not using that optimally, switching may be a really bad idea. Instead, ...

Yes you can skip eating all day for all I care, but water is an essential. There are enough clinical studies out there to show that your mental acuity drops when you don’t keep hydrated. And that just can’t be good for business, right? Do you subsist on coffee and cola? Do you suffer from the 3 pm slump or ...

Yes, on a previous page I told you to get an intern. Do you have a business partner? Or another senior person in the organisation? Then both of you can manage an intern. When you hire correctly, getting an intern is an immense value-add. At the same time you help a young person get a real head start. Am I ...

Have you ever attended a business networking function, and then a week later you look at the business cards you received and wonder “Who are these people?” Or had a prospect meeting, gotten busy and 2 days later you sat down to write the proposal, but can’t recall the details of the conversation? The fix is simple: do it that ...

Whatever you do, put your IT in the cloud. Whether it’s your customer database, your to–do list or your files the cloud will allow you to share more easily, hire contractors internationally, and be mobile yourself. Everybody can work on anything from anywhere. Huge bonus. So how do we actually do that? Even the technophile amongst us get a bit ...