You’ve most probably heard the expression “work on your business not in it”, but in case you are not familiar, it’s about you - the owner - spending time running and growing your business rather than, say, working the till.

This tip is a little angle on working on your business, but instead of working on your business it's about blogging on your business.

The idea is that you blog about the ideas, initiatives, questions, successes and failures of the business itself. So if you run a flower shop you may have a blog about, say, seasonal flowers on your business website but another blog (written somewhere else, to avoid confusion- such as on blogger or your personal website ) where you write about, say, how you are evaluating premises for the next flower shop site.

Best explained by examples and two of my favourites are:

22 Michaels (the ‘blog on your business’ for Shoes of Prey and Sneaking Duck)

Luk by Cindy Luken (the ‘blog on your business’ for Cindy’s start up Luk Beautifood. Cindy, by the way, was the founder of super delicious and equally successful Luken and May biscuits which she sold a few years ago)

Here’s why, when you blog on your business, it’s good for business:

• Writing forces you to articulate your thoughts clearly, which in turn makes your thoughts better (scientifically proven - funny thing the brain)
• The blog gives you a platform to ask for suggestions and feedback on your business ideas - It’s the many-heads-are-better-than-one philosophy but without any obligation to take the advice, perfect.
• Your followers will become your raving fans. It’s almost impossible not to. I’ve tried!* It’s because, I think, your reader gets absorbed in the story of the hero (you), starting out as the underdog (small business) taking on the giants (risk, customers, suppliers etc) and.....well after living through all that they just damn well want you to succeed.

Do you blog on your business? Are you going to blog on your business?

*For the avoidance of doubt and to maintain my friendships, I’ve not at all tried to avoid being fans of 22 Michaels and Cindy - both businesses are awesome

Here's another video I did for Kochie's Business Builders - finding a partner so you can expand your business. The chat is with Jane Rickets from That Personal Touch. It's not easy to find a good partner but here are some doable ideas.

With the new season of Kochie's Business Builders having just kicked off (Channel 7 Sunday's at 10 am) I've been rediscovering some videos I did over on their website. Lots of other good stuff there too.


This video is about the Daily Huddle. It's a great habit to get into even if you have just one employee.

I have been experimenting with a new way of getting more done.

My life is a busy one. I have 4 children, the youngest is 8 months and the oldest is 10. I run The Business Bakery, I’m on a few boards, I write columns, I give talks, I run strategic planning workshops, etc etc. And I’m no wonder woman. A few things fall through the cracks. Usually the important but not urgent stuff.

Looming rather large in that category right now is the content for the Zest part of this website. It’s been on the go for ages and I’m the bottle neck letting the side down

So I was excited recently to read a suggestion by Tony Schwartz of The Energy Project (theenergyproject.com) called the 90 minute plan.

I’ve been doing the 90 minute plan for a couple of weeks (not that long, I know) and it’s really working for me so I thought I’d share it.

The way to do it is this:

• start the night before by deciding what important work you want to do the next day (important in my world means building the business rather than replying to email)
• decide at what time the next day you will start working on the project
• at the appointed time turn off all email, phone etc devices, set your stop watch for 90 mins and get started
• you are not allowed to stop during the 90 mins
• you are not allowed to go over the 90 mins (apparently 90 mins is the optimal human limit for focusing)

I have decided to ‘find’ ten 90 minute sessions a week. That sounds easy but it’s really not! So far I have two sessions each during the day on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and evening sessions on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday night.

That’s 900 minutes - 15 hours. Doesn’t sound a lot but I now realise, in terms of concentrated focused time, it’s way more than I was doing! Armed with my new tool I‘m hoping the Beta version of Zest will be open by 1 Jan 2012.....

Have you tried this? What do you do to find really ‘good’ work time?

I’ve talked in previous posts such as "That "Mumpreneur" word" about the word Mumpreneur, and what I think it means in terms of women who run both businesses and families.

Without wishing to go all year 7 maths on you, I think there is a special subset of Mumpreneur whose business is based around a “Mumsolution’.

A Mumsolution is a solution to the sort of problem which wouldn’t register with you unless you had Mummy (or Mum to be) status.

Here are just a few examples, to help explain what I mean:

• The BellyBed
  
  A particular favourite of mine: an inflatable bed with a hole for your bump so you can sleep on your tummy. Take a look at the website which explains it far more eloquently than me.
  
  
• Pushcakes
  
  A clever little contraption to stop little ones making a mess when they eat cupcakes. Check it out here
  
  
• Breastmate
  
  Only a breastfeeding Mum gets how important it is to time and record your breast feeds, and that is exactly what Breastmate does, electronically so you don’t have to fumble with paper and pen in the middle of the night.

A large business isn't going to feel passionate enough about messy cake eating, timing breastfeeds or sleeping with a bump to work on creating these products. So Mumsolutions are incredibly important.

It's not easy to turn Mumsolutions into a business - especially not single product ones (more on that in later posts) - but thank goodness some people do!

On December 12 Martha Stewart, George Clooney and 4 other great speakers will be in Sydney speaking at "Unwrapping Genius". I can't wait.

I have long been an admirer of Martha Stewart. This little potted history of Martha might explain why:

Martha Stewart was born in New Jersey, her dad taught her gardening when she was only three; her mother taught her cooking and sewing; her grandparents taught her to put up preserves, and she learned to make pies and cakes from a pair of retired bakers who lived next door.

Martha started her career as a stockbroker but during the recession of the early 1970's she started a catering business from the basement of her house. Through catering for parties she met book publishers and soon had her first book published. The first book turned into a series of books which turned into TV appearances,her own TV shows, and now a multimedia platform. All based around lifestyle. She's the guru of her industry. Her business, Martha Stewart Omnimedia, is phenomenally successful.

Martha has also written a great book about starting and growing a business "The Martha Rules"

As well as Martha talking about building a brand, George Clooney (yes, The George Clooney!) will be talking about the power of collaboration. Also speaking are Jeff Taylor (founder of Monster.com), Michael Fertik (Reputation.com), Russel Simmons (Rush communications) and the fabulous Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Muhammed Yunus (Grameen Bank, microcredit pioneer). Wow!

If you want to know more you can download the brochure here. It's not a cheap day - the full price is $1400 - but because I've already got 8 people coming my invitees qualify for the reduced rate of $880. Register here to get it. (the link talks about Butterfly Coaching - that's my other company).

The event is the brainchild of The Growth Faculty - a great resource for Entrepreneurs. I'm on the advisory board of The Growth Faculty but not on commission for selling tickets....just very excited!


Hope to see you there.

Nearly a month ago I gave a Keynote at Flying Solo live on Managing your Business for Profit and afterwards followed it up with an interview with the ever-entertaining Phil Dobbie over at BTalk at Bnet.com. You can listen to it here or download on Itunes.

Lots of tips and not too much waffle!

This is the first in an ongoing series on this blog "little business, big mistake". It's easy to spot other people's mistakes but so much harder to see our own. I hope that by sharing these that we (embarrassingly) recognise that we do them too. Then, easy to fix!

The greatest advantage a Kitchen Table Business has over it's bigger brethren is that it can truly provide a happy and personalised service. But, groan, we sometimes get it so wrong!

Take this example:

We recently moved house and asked a small local business for a quote. When we didn't receive the quote we called up the owner. After a quick game of telephone tag he emailed us with "I hope you received my returned call whilst I was on leave". I'm not sure if he meant to sound grumpy but it certainly came across that way.

I do sympathise - it's tough to get away from your business when you are on holiday. But I tend to think you rather shoot yourself in the foot when you grumble about it to potential customers.

All businesses have to really work their points of difference. Happy and personalised isn't as easy as it sounds, but with a little effort it's very doable.