Stairs, filing cabinets and piles of paper
Yes, that’s right, we’ve got a problem with our filing. The big idea was that we buy a sparkly new filing cabinet for our sparkly new office, and leave the old one at home for home stuff.
But can we find somewhere that will deliver a filing cabinet to us and carry it up the stairs to our office? Is that really too much to ask? My foolish assumption was that delivery people would be equipt with things such as a stair trolley and would therefore be in a much better position to get the cabinet up the stairs than us. But no, it appears not.
We thought we’d found somewhere that would do it but several weeks after placing the order we were told they couldn’t do it because there was no lift in our building. If we had a lift we wouldn’t need help getting the darn thing up the stairs! So, that order was swiftly cancelled.
It’s now a month since we ordered the filing cabinet, the filing is mounting up, and we’re no nearer a solution. So, my question of the day is – is there anywhere that can sell us a filing cabinet and deliver it up the stairs for us? Or is there an alternative to a filing cabinet? Something that doesn’t involve one hefty piece of furniture? We’re open to suggestions!
10 characteristics of brilliant business books
One of the things that I enjoy about writing this blog is that it reminds me how many brilliant books there are out there (and sitting on my bookshelf). That has got me thinking about what makes a brilliant business book. So, here’s my list of 10 characteristics, in no particular order:
1. Pleasure to read
The book has got to be enjoyable, not a chore to read. I don’t want to have to force myself to open it up every evening in order to get through it. Instead, it must hold my attention and be written in a style that encourages me to keep reading, to the point that I don’t want to put it down. Yes, that is possible with a business book, trust me.
2. Inspiring
I want to be inspired by the book. Inspired to start trying out its advice straight away. I want to get a feeling of ‘yes, I can do it and I will!’. There’s nothing better than a book that leaves you feeling upbeat and ready for anything.
3. Easy to understand
I want to be able to understand the concepts in the book without resorting to a dictionary or having to re-read sections over and over again. I don’t mind if the concepts are challenging, if I’m learning something new then I do expect to have to make a bit of an effort, but I don’t want to be faced with a load of jargon and acronyms which aren’t explained.
4. Applicable to my business
It’s important to me that I can apply the advice/concepts in the book directly to my business. Of course, if I’m reading ‘Brilliant Book of Business Advice for Emily’ then I would expect it to apply to me, but it’s not that easy. I once did a marketing course designed for creative businesses but the course tutor had entirely based it on ‘creative business’ meaning ‘artist’. As a result he was constantly saying “this won’t apply to you, Emily”. Lovely. So I guess it’s important for the book to be clear from the start about who the intended audience is and then make sure that audience is catered for.
5. Practical application
Not only do I want to be able to understand the book in the context of my own business but I also want to be able to go away and apply the concepts in a practical fashion. Theory is great but I also want to be able to see how I can apply it in a practical way. Give me some exercises to do or talk me through putting together an action plan. Or, give some examples (see no. 6 below). I’m not going to fully understand it if I can’t see how I can use it.
6. Examples
Examples are great. They can be real-life examples or made up, doesn’t matter. Examples help you understand how the theory can be applied. They can also be inspiring (especially if they’re real-life examples) – a description of how somebody took a certain action and the positive affect it had on them or their business.
7. Knowledgeable author
It’s important that the author knows their stuff. If you think that they’ve got something wrong it makes you doubt the validity of the rest of their advice. So, they need to write in a knowledgeable way that gives you confidence in them, but also back up their claims with supporting resources. A few statistics don’t go astray, but don’t overload us with them
8. Up-to-date website
A lot of books these days have accompanying websites with downloads and other supporting materials. It’s clear from some books that the author has great plans for developing a fantastic resource. However, if you’re reading the book a couple of years down the road you may not find exactly what they’re promising. It’s amazing how many obviously abandoned websites I’ve come across. So, if you are directing readers to downloadable resources, put them there and keep them at the address that you’ve given. If you’re not going to actively work on the website for years to come, then provide everything that’s needed for the book and leave it at that. There’s nothing more offputting than news that is 3 years out of date, or promises of downloads which you can’t find however hard you try.
9. Clearly laid out
I like to see a list of contents which makes it clear what the topic of each chapter is. Attractively laid out pages with sub-headings and boxouts. Clear print – I don’t want teeny tiny crammed in print which I need a magnifying glass to read (yes, my eyesight isn’t the best), instead a good size print, nicely spaced out. It’s amazing how much this can affect your enjoyment of a book.
10. References to other brilliant books
And finally, I want the book to point me in the direction of other brilliant books. If I’ve enjoyed what I’ve read then I want to keep reading.
A positive experience with BT
The other day I wrote about my frustration at trying to use BT’s automated phone system. To balance that a little I actually had a very positive experience on Friday. We were having some problems with our phone line (or so we thought) so I called the fault line.
I got through to somebody very quickly – just had to enter my phone number and select one option and then was straight through. And the lady I got through to was brilliant. She went through the problem with me and ran a test on the line. The test came back clear – no problem with our line at all, so it was most likely the equipment. She offered to send me an email with some suggestions as to how to test it myself and agreed a time to phone back to see how I was getting on.
Meanwhile, I discovered that it was something very very silly. Definitely not a problem with the line at all. So when she phoned back at exactly the time we’d agreed I sheepishly explained that everything was fine and it had been my mistake. She was great – very understanding. What a delight to have such a helpful person to talk it through with.
I’ve broken the rules
I have a confession. I couldn’t even make it through one full week of the new time management system before I felt the need to make changes to it. That’s not playing by the rules is it?
The thing is that I wasn’t feeling comfortable that I was tackling the most important jobs. Yes, I was getting through stuff that needed doing but I had this feeling that I was missing the things that I should be focusing on. The lack of prioritisation just wasn’t sitting right.
So, on Friday morning I split my one list into three – client work, prospects and management (i.e. stuff to do with running the business). Each list was following the system in that there was a backlog and an active list for each. I could then spend the day working through the client list to make sure that I was keeping on top of the paid work. After all making money is what running a business is about isn’t it?
With hindsight splitting it into three lists was overkill – Monday I’m going to combine the client and prospects lists so that I end up with just two lists. I’ll see how I go with that. The idea is that I split my day into blocks – I’ll be happy if I can spend five hours on the client/prospect jobs and three on management tasks. I wonder if I can manage it.
More on time management
Today was day three of my new time management system. I’m at the stage now where in some ways I’m feeling really good about it and others less so. Good because it’s making me deal with some tasks which have been waiting to be done for ages. On the other hand I’m sure my active list is just getting longer and longer.
There have been times where I’ve dipped into the active list to make sure that the more immediate jobs are getting sorted – last thing I want is a client waiting for days for a response to an email because I haven’t reached that point of the list yet. But my goal is to clear everything from my original backlog so that I can draw a line at the end of the active list and start the process again. If I put my head down tomorrow and bash through it I’m hopeful that I’ll reach that point.
Breakfast at Cape Cornwall
This morning I went to a business breakfast at Cape Cornwall Golf & Leisure Resort. I’ve been doing this regularly for the last few months. The idea is to have breakfast with other local business people and do a bit of networking. The Golf Club is a great venue – in a stunning location and the breakfasts are great.
Unfortunately I couldn’t enjoy the view this morning because of fog – now that’s definitely an interesting way to start the day, driving carefully along the narrow, windy country lane in thick fog. Oh well, it’s all part of the fun of living in West Cornwall isn’t it? And we’re having a beautiful sunny evening in St Just so definitely no complaints there.
If you’re based in our neck of the woods why don’t you join us for breakfast one Tuesday? Best way to find out about the breakfasts is to join the Facebook page: West Cornwall Business Club.
Day 1 of Autofocus V. 4
Would it be terrible of me to admit that I’ve been really enjoying trying out the Autofocus time management system? Maybe I should get out more… Last night I set it up at home and this morning I started putting it into practice at work.
I really like the methodical approach – I haven’t been wasting time trying to work out which of my many projects and tasks I should be working on next, instead I could just work through the list in order skipping anything that I didn’t have the resources at hand to tackle straight away.
So far I think this is the most valuable instruction: “Delete each task when you feel you have worked on it for long enough, and re-enter it at the end of the Active List if you need to do more work on it”. This meant that I could happily do some work on a project without feeling like I had to completely finish it – once I’d had enough I could cross it off and add it to the end of the list to come back to. Working on this basis I’ve made progress on some jobs today which have been sitting waiting for my attention for quite some time.
So, after the first 24 hours of using the system I’m feeling pretty good about it. I’ve been happily crossing things off all day and will be able to get straight back into it tomorrow. And of course I get to continue putting it into practice this evening with my home list.
Can’t resist a new time management system
It’s true, I just can’t help myself. Whilst looking through the resources section of the site to check that all the links are still current (a job I still have to finish) I got distracted by Mark Forster’s blog on time management and in particular his Autofocus V. 4 system.
Time management is one of my obsessions. I’m always trying to reinvent my approach to time management. I’ve got a couple of cracking books that I use – I see that I haven’t reviewed either of them yet, so will be adding reviews in the coming weeks. However, I’m always interested in trying something new. I find rejigging things occasionally can give me a new lease of life.
So, I’m going to have a go at the autofocus system. Actually, now that I’ve read about it I’m itching to start. Once I’m up and running I should have a list split into two sections – Backlog and Active List. I can then use the system laid out by Mark to work through the list in a focused way. That’s the theory at least – have a look at Mark’s instructions for a step-by-step explanation of how it works.
BT: worst automated phone system?
Yesterday I added a new article to the site describing some of our experiences of moving our business into an office. I described some of the problems we’ve encountered with setting up our business phone line with BT. What I find particularly interesting is that a phone company can do such a terrible job at providing phone-based customer service. Surely with their years of experience and expertise they should have an outstanding phone system?
Here’s the problem I had. I had an issue that I wanted to discuss with BT – that is with a real person who could listen to my problem, check our account and discuss it with me. So, I phoned the number provided on the paperwork they had sent and started the usual process of selecting options from the automated menu system. The first couple of times I chose the options which actually applied to me – yes, I was phoning from the number I wanted to enquire about; yes, I wanted to enquire about an existing order. And each time I’d end up at an automated message which told me that I had one order in progress. I already knew that, it was that order I wanted to ask about! There were then no further options so the call was ended.
Hmmm, not very helpful is it? I started experimenting with the options I selected and at one point got through to someone who reckoned they couldn’t access the kind of order number I had on their system, at which point they put me through to a number which just rang and rang and … rang. Why would a customer service department attached to the number given on the paperwork associated with my account not be able to access my account details?
In the end I resorted to randomly selecting the options which didn’t apply to me and eventually got through to someone who could actually help. This particular person was very helpful and sorted out my concerns very quickly. They were even very understanding when I explained how frustrated I’d got at trying to get through to someone who could help me. They reckon that the powers that be are aware of the difficulty customers are having with the phone system and are going to improve it. Do I believe that they will? Not sure. I certainly hope that I don’t have much cause to ring them up in the future.
Time for a comeback
It’s been a seriously long time since I’ve posted on here. A shamelessly long time. Well, it’s definitely time for a comeback.
My biggest piece of news from the last few months is that we’ve moved our business (Webfooted Designs) out of the home into an office. This is something that we’ve been wanting to do for a long time. Earlier this year we made a concerted effort to find somewhere but couldn’t find anything suitable.
We really wanted to keep our business in St Just, where we live. It’s a great place and we love being part of the community here. However, St Just is a very small Cornish town and doesn’t have a great deal of office space available at the moment. So, after a lot of asking around we decided to call a halt to the search and make more of our home office, making room for a meeting space so we would feel more comfortable asking clients here.
Of course, no sooner had we rearranged our house and got ourselves set up then the perfect office landed in our laps. It’s funny how that happens isn’t it? It has meant that we’ve had to move out of St Just but we’re only 5 miles down the road at Trereife (just outside of Newlyn). We’ve got a lovely spacious office, loads of easy parking and all in a beautiful setting. We feel very lucky.
