The PR Machine
by Judith Morgan on October 31, 2005
in Money Gym | Diaries
Our wonderful PR lady, Paula Gardner of www.doyourownpr.com, is getting some fantastic results for The Money Gym.
Today Nicola was offline all day (she must be beside herself) up in London getting an extreme makeover for a photoshoot for a woman’s magazine, Top Sante I think.
Business Updates
by Nicola Cairncross on October 22, 2005
in Money Gym | Diaries
.Net Magazine beckons
by Nicola Cairncross on October 22, 2005
in Money Gym | Diaries
The PR person for the Wealth Conference has managed to get Dot Net magazine interested in interviewing me (quite the media tart this week darling!) and I had to write up my Internet biography which again, made me realise how much has happened recently! Read that over at the blog if you are interested >>>>
Results of the Survey
by Nicola Cairncross on October 22, 2005
in Money Gym | Diaries
Building A Business To Love
If you want to know the answer you can read on……
Paula Gardner asked us if we could do a survey of all of our clients and contacts to find out
"What Is Your Biggest Challenge Around Money?" and do you know what the overwhelming response was?
"I’m not earning enough to save"
Over double the number of people ticked this box than any other!!
Because we gave the people who responded, a box for comments, many of them went on to tell us why.
We were very surprised that the main complaint was not that people felt underpaid in their jobs, but that many were business owners, self employed or thinking of becoming so.
The responses divided largely into three main issues, which was most interesting…
1. The general assumption that being self employed / starting a business often means not enough income
2. Not knowing how to "do" business successfully
3. Not knowing how to find enough customers or clients (and then being able to sell to them at the right price, when you did find them)
Now the good news is that you can design your business to generate many more times income than you need to earn – to run without you and to be worth a decent sum of money so that one day, when you want to go and lie on a beach somewhere, someone else will want to buy it (and in fact that’s what many successful businesses do from Day One).
The other good news is that you CAN learn to "do" business successfully – quite quickly too! And my business partner Judith Morgan and I are working on something to address just those two burning issues.
But I’m not here to talk about that today………..
I want to talk about Issue #3. But before I do, I wanted to show you a selection of the responses; perhaps you may even recognise yourself, if you are self employed or a small or medium sized business owner?
Here is a selection of the responses to the "biggest challenge" question:
"I own my own company so another major worry is saving for my retirement (as well as meeting the bills each month!)
"Developing my business to make sure there is enough to pay me for working in it"
"Having just started a new business – the biggest money concern I have is how to keep the income incoming – you wonder how you’ll ever make enough to save any for when you’re old!"
"I am developing my own business, still working part-time, and have zilch capital……need to massively increase turnover!"
"It’s ‘Not Earning Enough’ ……. (never mind ‘to save’). Since being at home have tried at least 12 business ventures, none of them particularly lucrative…but I keep on trying"
"Making our new company (2004) earn enough money for the 2 of us"
"My main worry is generating a sustained income from my business"
"finding products…..driving enough qualified prospects to buy (from my website), is my current challenge. Like many before me, I seek the Internet elusive ‘holy trinity’ – product – traffic – sales!"
"Starting up business and paying the mortgage combined pressures!"
"Justifying fees to clients (I am a one-person limited company)"
So, what’s the recurring theme here?
Not enough income.
So why is that happening?
Not enough profits (as a business owner, you have to take your income from profits after you pay the costs of doing business)
So why is that happening?
Not enough clients or customers!
So why is that happening?
Assuming that the product or service is in demand and that you are good at what you do………the only reason must be that you persist in keeping yourself a very tightly kept and closely guarded secret!
That’ll be caused by no marketing then!
(or even worse, ineffective and expensive marketing).
Let me ask you a question!
If all your business problems would be solved by higher profit, caused by more customers or clients, causing a bigger turnover (but not bigger costs) and a bigger turnover is created by effective marketing, why is it that so many business owners and self employed people don’t invest in learning how to be more effective marketeers, or invest in working with someone who is?
Food Glorious Food
by Nicola Cairncross on October 22, 2005
in Money Gym | Diaries
Where She’s Been & Who She’s Seen….
I haven’t been out much recently apart from to Gatwick with the Mo*ney Gym coaches but I’m having dinner with Guy Levine in Brighton on Thursday. We are going to one of Brighton’s finest restaurants One Paston Place which, co-incidentally is owned by my first every Business Coach, Rachel Turner and her Italian husband Francesco Furriello. Yum – just look at that scallop up there!
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And on the topic of food, apart from Steve’s fabulous cooking, I’ve been enjoying the odd naughty treat -strictly rationed to one a day – from a present sent to me by the wonderful Annie Kaszina, Nina and Sharon – a box of truffles – handmade daily don’t you know? from The Chocolate Society that arrived one dull rainy day recently Thanks Girls! (I think!) |
And We Thought Only Women Could Multitask!
by Nicola Cairncross on October 22, 2005
in Money Gym | Diaries
I thought I would just share a funny moment with you……….there has been a great discussion going on the Financial Intelligence email discussion group about tithing and the effect it has on THE universe and one’s OWN universe, and Anita Simmonds posted a fabulous email which stopped us all in our tracks! This came right after one of her very practical emails helping someone to set up a membership only Smartgroup community………..
Steve particularly enjoyed one paragraph which he read out to me…..
"Getting back to the metaphysical stuff. You lot are more enlightened than most. Increasingly on this forum and others I am noticing a shift towards the concept of manifestation. That is because having moved from the Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius, there is now a shift of the ‘theme’ for the World. The Age of Pisces was about Cause and Effect, do as you would be done by etc. The Age of Aquarius is about creating heaven on earth. It’s about remembering that we are not physical beings aspiring to the spiritual, but spiritual beings in physical bodies. We don’t need to defer to a universal energy to provide for us – we are part of that energy, which means we are creators in our own right. This means we are capable of anything! This Age is about self reliance, and taking responsibility for the creation of your own reality. I think that it is the best form of giving you can do. Remember the saying, give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day. Show him how to fish and he’ll eat well for the rest of his life"
…..while he was simultaneously building a website and playing online poker!
He is quite unique!
Nicola’s Internet Biog
by Nicola Cairncross on October 21, 2005
in Money Gym | Diaries
Lash-licious Property Investment
by lifemadesimple on October 20, 2005
in Money Gym | Diaries
Posted by Annie Kaszina, Money Gym Coach
My twilight life as an Alexander Technique teacher holds many delights, not the least of which is delicately encompassing the head of a pupil (aka client) between my hands, as they lie semi-supine on my table; and enjoying a bird’s-eye view of their eyelashes.
Ok, so not everybody has eyelashes that would send a poet into raptures. Sharon, my all blogging, all philosophising Shih Tsu (now blogging, when the fancy takes her at www.lifemadesimple.typepad.com) has eyelashes so long and thick they’d make a supermodel weep. So too does S. (not his real initial) an all time favourite Alexander pupil.
Now S. is not only an all time favourite pupil simply because of his eyelashes. They’re just the icing on the cake, so to speak. S. is formidably bright, a high-flyer in a multi-national company, a negotiator whose skills are fast becoming legendary, someone who dazzles CEO’s all the way from South East Asia to South America. He’s majored in all the social graces. S. is an absolute delight to listen to; an incredibly tough-minded man who lives life in the fast lane, yet is learning about self-care, not least through the Alexander Technique.
During our last lesson when he began talking about …
Rental Property Shortage….!
by Nicola Cairncross on October 13, 2005
in Money Gym | Diaries
Property Investor, Share Trader, Wealth Conference speaker/guru, Rohan Weerasinghe has posted an interesting and informative article about the forthcoming possible shortage of rental properties – excellent news for those into buy-to-let!
Pinging Technerati
by Nicola Cairncross on October 12, 2005
in Money Gym | Diaries
Pinging Technerati.com
