“If you and I agree all the time then only one of us is necessary” I stumbled on this anonymous quote and love it. It neatly encapsulates the necessary tension between two business partners, a boss and her staff or indeed a husband and wife.

The best businesses partnerships I have seen are where two very different people have come together. Maybe one has a marketing background the other financial, or a people person and a strategist. The point is that they complement each other, one is strong where the other is weak, and yes of course they argue.  But it’s good arguing, it gets a better result.

 

A great example of this is in the movie The September Issue. For most of the 90 minute film Vogue Editor –In-Chief Anna Wintour is sparring with Vogue’s Creative Director Grace Coddington. The tension between Coddington’s artistic talent and Wintour’s business brain is palpable, no more so than when Coddington has sweat blood and tears to produce a photo shoot which Wintour proceeds to throw out. Even just looking at them you can see he two women are poles apart (Coddington is sensible shoes and no make-up, Wintour is perfectly put together) but as a combination they are so powerful that they have sat at the top of the $300 billion fashion industry for 20 years.

 

One of the reasons that I like the example of Wintour and Coddington so much is that they are women. In my experience, and I am prepared to be vociferously challenged on this, women are far more likely to start a business with someone that they are very similar too, than someone who is their opposite.  I few years ago I spent some time with a business run by two friends, Penny and Amanda. They were both great ideas people but absolutely hopeless at execution. The business was on its last legs when Penny decided to exit it. She sold her share to Sarah, a women Amanda disparagingly described as “so not me”.  But the unlikely combination turned out to be perfect; Sarah wasn’t going to set the world alight with her ideas but boy, she was good at getting things done.

 

So if you are in business with a partner, thinking of starting a business with a friend or working closely with an employee ask yourself “do we agree all the time?” And if the answer is yes, it could be time for one of you to go.

Here's a podcast I did with Phil Dobbie from BTalk:


This is how Phil pitched it:

"Do good cooks make good business people? That might be a big call, but perhaps there’s some commonality in the learning curve of trying to master each of them.

Julia Bickerstaff from The Business Bakery says people often go into business without understanding the science that lies behind it. Baking, she says, is the same. It needs some mathematical respect. Too much of one ingredient can kill the taste just as it can destroy a business."

If you've got time take a look at BTalk. I have listened to a number of their interviews and found them thought provoking and laden with content. Best of all they are short and converstaional. I like to listen to them while processing other stuff....like folding the ironing or indeed, cooking dinner!

I don't think I am overstating it when I say that this book has caused a revolution in my life. Gone are the reams of to-do lists and instead I am mega organised with easy-to-do 'next steps', project lists and so much more. For the first time in what seems like eternity my brain feels a lot freer. Wow! This book is not a light hearted look at getting organised but a serious masterpiece by the productivity guru David Allen. It's not a tough read but if you want to get results you must commit to following the guru's advice.

To be honest I had this book on my "must read" list for about a year before I got to it, I wish I hadn't waited so long. It's a gem.

You can buy it here by clicking on the pictures below:

In Australia:


In the UK:

I've just finished my BAS, I'm a qualified accountant so I shouldn't grumble but to be honest I used to find MYOB torture (and Quiken and all the others). About 6 months ago I started using SAASU and I love it. If you are not very accounting/numbers minded this is for you. It's intuitive, it speaks in real english and it assumes you know absolutely nothing about the curious world of book keeping. I suggest you have a go with this. Even if you then decide to hire a book keeper (a decision I recommend when you can afford it) you will have a much better understanding of what they are doing for you and you can steer them in the right direction when it comes to 'expense categories' and other useful stuff.

You can give SAASU a go for free by clicking here and do let me know how you get on.

Here is a fabulous discovery, an online whiteboard. Perfect if you like to think while you doodle or if you like to draw and share your ideas.

It's free, it's fun, it's simple. Here's the link. www.imaginationcubed.com

And you can share your whiteboard with friends, clients and employees simply by emailing...and they can edit, annotate or simply scribble on your masterpiece!

Here's a link to a video I did for the guys at Boardroom Radio. In it I talk about building businesses, my career, mentors and other conversational stuff. It's part of a series on "Innovative Women". Take a look at the other videos in the series they are fantastic and well worth a watch.

Notebook Magazine August 09

I am an enormous fan of Seth Godin. In this two minute video here he talks about the value - or otherwise - of social networking.

It's fun to play around with social networking, but if you are running a business how much is it costing you to add new friends and keep up with old ones?

Try this exercise....

Start by giving your time a cost, an hourly rate. I talk about how to do this in "How to Bake a Business" but here's a quick snapshot. Take the annual salary that you could get as an employee and divide it by 1920 (40 hours a week for 48 weeks). So if you could earn $70,000 in employment land your hourly rate would be $36.46.

Then grab a diary for a week (or just a couple of days if a week is too long to bear) and make a note of how much time you spend on social networking. Write it down as you do it. If you leave noting it until the end of the day you will be enormously inclined to under estimate it (as when keeping a food diary as a prelude to a diet).

Now add up the hours you have spent on Social Networking.

Armed with your total social networking hours, multiply it by your hourly rate. The result is the cost to you of social networking over the diary period.

If that doesn't alarm you, calculate what it is costing you over a year.

Yes it's fun, yes it can make good business sense. But yes, social networking comes at a cost!

As a professional speaker and writer I get to go to lots of functions and meet many people.

If I were a little more disciplined I would write the details of the function (when, where, theme) on the back of the business cards I collect at each event.

But I don’t.

Instead I put all the cards from an event into a little snap-lock back inside my handbag (I’m a Mum of 3 young children; I am well acquainted with snap-lock bags) and I write the details of the event on the bag itself (with special-big-fat-blue-marker pen).

Then, when I get a chance to follow up on the people I have met I just grab the right little bag.

It works for me; it might just work for you.

Are you feeling that your business idea maybe not such a great idea after all?

Have you started down one path only but now you wish you had chosen a different direction?

It’s not too late.

If you think your idea is a bit less-than, throw it out.

It’s not a waste. Everything you have learned pursuing that idea will make the next idea profoundly better.

In fact the world’s best innovations start as one idea and morph into unrecognizable businesses.

The original idea behind Sony was to bring rice cookers to the masses. That idea failed, but look what took its place.

If in doubt, chuck it out. Or recycle