December 5, 2025 • 63 mins
On this month’s Women in Business Radio Show, host Sian Murphy is joined by regular co-host and Michele Yianni-Attard and special guest Jane Martin, business connector and Federation of Small Businesses membership advisor, for a business roundup.
They share what’s gone well and what’s gone a bit sideways over the past few weeks. From Michele’s trip to Malta and stepping into her new role as CFO of a bank, Jane’s experiment with simple, direct LinkedIn outreach that has her diary overflowing, to Sian’s hunt for the right operations manager, and why getting the right job title and role was key.
The conversation takes a no-nonsense approach to sales, why spammy “I found an error on your website” emails don’t work, and how real business so often happens in unexpected venues – from wine bars and Wetherspoons booths to go-kart tracks.
Created and hosted by Sian Murphy with regular co-hosts Michele Yianni Attard, Kay Best, Rachael Bryant and occasionally Adelle Martin.
Find out how to be a guest or patron of the show on the Women in Business Radio Show website.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-women-in-business-radio-show--1228431/support.
Created and hosted by Sian Murphy with regular co-hosts Michele Yianni Attard, Kay Best, Rachael Bryant and occasionally Adelle Martin.
Find out how to be a guest or patron of the show at https://thewomeninbusinessradioshow.com
They share what’s gone well and what’s gone a bit sideways over the past few weeks. From Michele’s trip to Malta and stepping into her new role as CFO of a bank, Jane’s experiment with simple, direct LinkedIn outreach that has her diary overflowing, to Sian’s hunt for the right operations manager, and why getting the right job title and role was key.
The conversation takes a no-nonsense approach to sales, why spammy “I found an error on your website” emails don’t work, and how real business so often happens in unexpected venues – from wine bars and Wetherspoons booths to go-kart tracks.
Created and hosted by Sian Murphy with regular co-hosts Michele Yianni Attard, Kay Best, Rachael Bryant and occasionally Adelle Martin.
Find out how to be a guest or patron of the show on the Women in Business Radio Show website.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-women-in-business-radio-show--1228431/support.
Created and hosted by Sian Murphy with regular co-hosts Michele Yianni Attard, Kay Best, Rachael Bryant and occasionally Adelle Martin.
Find out how to be a guest or patron of the show at https://thewomeninbusinessradioshow.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to the Women in Business Radio show with Sean Murphy,
connecting women in business around the globe.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hello, and welcome into the Women in Business Radio so studio.
So we are going to have our regular business round
up for the month, and my co host today is
well as usual for this show, Mikhael and also in
the studio with us today, we have a lovely Jane Roltin,
who was a very good friend to all of us.
(00:36):
And actually, what I'm going to do, Jane, is I'm
going to let you tell people what you do.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Well. I'm a business connector, so I connect different businesses
together a mutual benefit. Some businesses might want a new client,
some businesses might want services and products that other people offer.
So what I do is I spend time listening to
those peopleunderstanding what they do, and then trying to connect
(01:03):
and help to grow each each person's business.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
And you've been doing this, This isn't a new thing.
Is that you've been doing this for quite a while.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Yeah, I've been doing it quite a while. It started.
I'm Alwoso, a membership advisor for the Federation of Small Businesses.
During the COVID period, we had lots of conversations. There
wasn't a lot of business happening because people were very
nervous about spending money. But it made me realize, you know,
if you're going to speak to thirty forty businesses in
(01:30):
a week and find out what they do, what added
value can you give them, which would be connecting them
because a lot of people are good at what they do.
But as I just saw, I was out just before
this chat taking my dog to the groomers, and the
dog groomers the dog groomer asked me what I do,
(01:52):
and they said, oh, we're in telecoms, but we're really
good at what we do, but we find it difficult
to find customers. There you go, Wow, I can help
them to do that because I know people in telecoms,
and I know lots of dog groomers, and I know
lots of people on the radio.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
And there you go, and this is ere it works.
It goes round and round. We just ought to get
a great, big bus. I always thought this because we
could stop off at the wine bar, couldn't we We
could like top up, top up, and off we go. Yeah,
we have a few beer drinkers, monks, just don't we
not menty, we can put them at the back absolutely
and off we go. Right, Okay, so this show is
(02:31):
our round up. We are going to be talking for
the next or let's just say, relaxed hour or so,
maybe a little bit less about what has gone well
this month, what hasn't gone well this month, and maybe
some lessons that have been associated with that. What we're reading,
listening to, watching. It could be that we're just staring
at the wall, what tools we're using, what we're finding
(02:55):
useful to use, and some advice for the month ahead,
all from sort of three very very business different some
busy business women in quite different sort of walks of life.
Really because Miquel Michel does, I'm going to tell you
what Miquel does. Michael does all sorts of things. She's
she's an accountant, she's an international accountant. She also runs
(03:16):
Future Insights. She's which is a consultancy managing accounts for
other people. You help you support property businesses, don't you
as well? And also they're working with some very strange
women run now brand new Savvy Skills, which is a
screening hub business which is a training hub training people
with what I call hardcore business skillstely so things like finance,
(03:43):
not so much things like confidence, although we could bounce
out into that, couldn't we. But it's more about, actually,
there are some key skills that you need to get
to run your business if you're a director, the stuff
that you have to do with your finances, with all
of this sort of thing. Absolutely, and it's about. It's
about what I call the hardcore train. It's not fluffy stuff.
So I don't know what I do really, I don't
(04:08):
know what I do. I run, I host business showcases,
I host, I do this. I published magazines. I don't know.
Flap around a lot really, so I work with lots
of people. I run events. Mainly, I spend time in
wine bars just looking busy.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
That must be where we met in a wine bar,
I mean last wine bar.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Soun's good to me.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
It's a terrible life.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
That could be one recommendation for the viewers. Good business
always starts in wine bars, wine bars, and it carries
on in it sort.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Of does, doesn't it. And one of the things look
no structure, no structure at all. I've written something down.
I've got four lines in five four lines, which is
quite a lot for me. But straight away. Where are
we We're bimbling off down into another road. But you're
absolutely right because and in the meetings that we have
or they get togethers, it may be in a wine bar,
(05:13):
but it is across the board, isn't it. There will
be people from the trades. There's professionals, there's crafters, there's
holistic people, and it's a real and right mix because
we all need.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Each other exactly.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
And when I said to somebody once you know, oh no,
well no, you know we're off too. I quite like
it when we all get together in wine bars, the
wine bars. Well actually but you know, yes, yes it
is who gives us stuff. It's only snobbish if you
think it's snobbish. Nobody else is there does And that's
It's about doing business, isn't it. It's about those conversations
that happen.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Yeah, exactly, and that the wine bars are business too.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
There you go, and when they think when they when
it's a great event, then the people are in there
like to go. They go there and it's great time,
they take their partners there in a great time and
more business.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
How it works.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Absolutely, And whilst we're talking about that, there are so
many different places that you may never think about that
you can actually go and have business meetings places that
are really maybe really keen to host you. So, for instance,
we have a meeting next month with Business for Medway,
which is at sare Karting. Now, they're not a it's
(06:28):
not it's not a meeting room as such. It's not
the sort of it's not a boardroom that you go
and hire. It's not a council office, it's not a
coworking space. It's a suppace where people go and enjoy
themselves on carts. But it's a brilliant place to go
and have a meeting. It's good fun, it's different. They're
more than welcome to you know, more than happy to
welcome us. It's show you know, we get the chance
(06:48):
to talk about our businesses and what we're doing, and
they also get a chance to show other people other
businesses are the business people what they're doing. It's it's
a really really good way to collaborate. So if you
are thinking of running a meeting for your business, or
it could be that you're delivering a service or you're
meeting someone, always have a think about some of those
other venues where you could go. You know, in the
(07:11):
UK there weatherspoons. Weatherspoons don't have meat, I don't have music.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
No, it's true.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
They have quite a lot of booths and they don't
have music or boom boo boo. They have booze as
well boo or was it boobs? Okay, weatherspoons they do
have booze, but I did say probably have boobs as well,
and they do have but they have booths and they
(07:38):
have really good WiFi and they have plug sockets. And
tell you what, it's a really it's a simple place
to go and sit down. There's no carry on, there's
no fah, there's no fuss, you can get all daitya
and coffee and you can just sit there and have
really quite a quiet meeting to yourself. Yep, you know,
so just think about those sorts of places. Sometimes I
(07:58):
don't know about you, but very often, you know, we
end up going to boardrooms or booking meeting rooms where
there's additional expense which we don't always need. And it's
nice sometimes to get out into the community and share
those sort of community type spaces.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Absolutely, and ideas are made in pubs and it's how
the world has worked for a very very long time.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
It's where it's where the deals.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Had down there.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
If you think of sage, yeah, sage.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Well the accounting people.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Yeah, the account when they're not just accounting.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
I didn't know if it's that stuff that you put
in your.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Start off as an accounting system. It's all over the world,
including everywhere. They started the idea of the name of
the company being in a booth there. It's two university guys.
He wrote it for his friend's company and they saw,
you know, you remember you used to buy those like
(08:55):
little sage and stuff, not say like sage. What do
they call them? The things that are not book garny.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
No, no, not cubes, not stock cubes. But is this
something you're smoking, not at all?
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Herbs and spices racks? Yes, Well there was a picture
on the wall in this bar and it had Sage,
and they went, what about Sage? And that's where the
name came from.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
It was two partners, was the other one? Not called onion.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
It's always one. I'm just saying, why do we invite
this is a very serious discussion exactly, but I'm just
saying it comes up with ideas.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
They just happened to be looking at an absolute picture
of a spice rack. That was the word I was
trying to get out, and said, oh, Sage, that's that's
where it came from me.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
There you go. I don't want to say no, I
don't know what to say, right, I'll tell you what then,
let's it would be so good if I've actually prepped
any of this for myself at all. So you guys
are going to have to go first, and I know
you haven't prepped it because you don't know what we're
talking about. Okay, So so what has gone well over
(10:17):
the last should we do it the other way around?
And what hasn't gone well? Oh okay, you got gone
well in your head? I did right? Well do that?
Then what's gone well over the last month?
Speaker 3 (10:30):
So last week I was able to meet with the
board in Malta, so flew to Malta. Everyone thinks I
was on holiday, or wasn't on holiday.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
She was on holiday because she said later later this
earlier today she went I'm going on holiday again, okay
next week, which rather which rather suggests that you see
it's subliminal, which means that the previous trip to Malta
was in fact a holiday, was on doesn't.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
All I saw was offices and four walls. I did
go out for dinner one night with my new board members,
and so basically I'm now officially the CFO. Officially I
knew I was going to be the CFO, but officially
the CFO of a bank. And we started all our
quarter reporting last week. I'm really really so yeah. So
(11:25):
I'm now clinked with Dubai and Malta. So I'm loving
it so phenomenal. I can't get the words out.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Its phenomenal.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
That's it. It's the afternoon. You know what the afternoon's
like for me exactly. So anyway, No, that was really good.
As I mentioned, we appointed our first member of team
and administrator stroke book keeper, stroke accountant for the group.
(11:56):
Got nice office. It's all good. Yeah, So that went
well last week and then business was made, some certain
businesses were made last that.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
It was a bit of a whole, wasn't it. These
things just take a long time, don't they did.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
And I also met the UK embassy official like a
closed networking event last week and she was very insight
conversation with her. So yeah, it was a really good week.
So that went well for me last week.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
So this is why we should do it the other
way around. We should have what didn't go well and
then we can finish a bit on a high. Never mind,
never mind, I mean that is wow, well done, thank you,
that's brilliant, thank you. What went well for you?
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Well? One word LinkedIn?
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Yay, Okay.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
We tried a new approach to working with LinkedIn, and
I've got a team making connections for me and I've
been running behind myself with appointments. They're taking a very
direct approach. So it's you know, Hi, it's Jane. This
(13:11):
is what I do think how to look at your business.
Would really like to have a chat with you. I
think it would be valuable that we work together. When
I heard that, I thought, no, that's too direct. I'd
be a little bit more touchy feely. I have people
sending me messages saying, I'm really sorry, Jane, I've been
away on holiday. I'm really sorry. I'd really love to
meet you. My calendar is full. It's been full for
(13:34):
the last month, it's full for this month pretty pretty much. Yeah,
and it's been amazing.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
So is this just messages? You're just messaging people that
you're connected with on LinkedIn. Do you know what you
said was about it being really direct? Is that for
a long time has always been my approach, and I
get really quite not cross. I'm not sure that cross
is the right word. But you see so much sales
(14:01):
training that's talking about overcoming objections. You know, like there's
some sort of secret psychological trick here that you have
to do, that you have to pull the wool over
some people's eyes, that you have to approach it this
way and go on, I'm just doing a survey or
you know, I'm not selling anything. I just you know,
and I don't appreciate being approached to like that. I
(14:24):
feel like I'm being lied to. I think, you know,
if somebody needs your service, all you need to do
is show it to them and answer questions that they
have and be honest. And if they say, oh, does
it do X, Y and Z, you just say no,
it doesn't, because they're going to find out. They are
(14:44):
going to find out that it doesn't do that. So
what on earth is the point of mushing around it?
Just say no, it doesn't, and that's it. Really it doesn't.
And then what I find happens is that it might
not be right for them because you've been quite honest
with them. Actually, I don't think this isn't right for
you because of X, Y and Z, but that they
(15:04):
will if they may well at some point come across
somebody and it is right for them, and they actually
what you need to do, go and have a chat
with these guys because they know that you're on this.
What on earth is the point of all that sub
diffusion carry on? And so I can see why just
an approach, this is what we do. You've got one
of those, you know you've got one of these. This
(15:25):
is what we do. Would you like to have a.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Chat exactly that?
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Would you like? Would you like to have a chat?
It's either yes or no.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
I don't like it either.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
And I see whole people making entire professions out of
smoke mirrors, deceit, yeah, gray areas, And I think, what
what an effort?
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Yeah, it's very disrespectful.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
It is disrespectful.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Most people can pick up on that and they feel
like they're being taken and for a full.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Yeah yeah, and I never really see the point. And
the other thing I get are emails that I've had
a look at your site and there's something and there's
something wrong with it. Did I ask you to.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Didn't work?
Speaker 2 (16:16):
They ask you to go and look at my website.
Of course there's something wrong with it. There's something wrong
with nearly every website in the entire world. But I
didn't ask you to do that. And then and then
when you delete them or you don't get back to them,
you get a series of emails. I'm still waiting for
your response. Are you really I didn't ask you to
look at it in the first place. You know, I've
put together this report you won't and you block them,
(16:39):
But but it's not blockable? Is it because they just
come back with it? They come back with another thing.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
And people not take take the hint.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Well, I think it's because you know, when you when
you have a look at these very often they the
people actually sort of don't exist. There's no phone number.
It's a big not spamming thing, but it's just going
out and it's like rotation emails aatly and it's you know,
selling on behalf of a big agency or something along
those lines, so that it's not a person. There isn't
(17:09):
somebody sat there called George going oh my goodness. Maybe
they still haven't looked at my email, but really, who
who falls for this? Some people must, I guess, you know.
Whereas if you've got you know, so we work with WordPress.
If you've got a WordPress website, you might want some
help with it. You've got a WordPress website, we actually
work with that sort of thing. Did you want to
(17:30):
have a chat?
Speaker 3 (17:31):
No?
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Oh, okay, yes, right, let's have a chat.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Makes sense, that's it, totally.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
M hm.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
And just you know what we what we've changed. We've
been doing a lot of having data and linking cold
calls to appointment to where decision makers, which I don't
I don't have a problem doing, but it doesn't really
work anywhere near as connecting with the original people. And
it comes back to the lots of the conversations have
(18:00):
about creating a relationship and if you know somebody on
LinkedIn and you're already connected with it's just brilliant.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Yeah, absolutely no, And it's you know, I think as
long as you're not lying exactly, don't people don't want fluff.
We haven't got time for all of that. And the
thing is, you know, I can see in those direct
you know, the direct messages that come in LinkedIn, Hello,
I noticed that we're connected and it's lovely, and then
it's this is what we do boom boom boom boom
boom boom boom, and then a link through for you
(18:28):
to go and have a look at it. Yeah, they
know nothing about me and they haven't taken the time
to have any look at anything. And it's and then
telling me, you know, we need to have a chat,
because no we don't. We don't need to have a
chat at all.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
If I need your services, I don't need to talk
to you.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Yeah, exactly. And yeah, the one you know you learn
more by listening and finding out isact those people have
actually done some research first of all, and found out
something good about you do, something good about your website,
something good.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Well, I'm I yes, and no, I don't know. Is
that not a little bit like when you get those
spammy emails that says, I've had to look at your
website and it's lovely, it's got some really good stuff
about it.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
But yeah, but I get those everybody probably across.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
The and I think it's probably because you know, that's
what we do, we work with with websites. But you know,
I think something can be really good. But that doesn't
mean that you don't need some help with it. Or
it can look absolutely or it can look absolutely awful,
or that it could be a real problem. It can
be really really slow. But that's right. You're not in
a space where you want help with it. That's fine.
(19:43):
I My personal approach is you have one of these
we do this, Do you need some help?
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Yeah, that would have been better approach.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
No, they're just like send it out two hundreds of
thousands of peoples the globe, but email and then just
people sort of thinking that sales is a lot harder
than it is.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
It really, sales is not difficult. It's just not difficult.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
It's it's when you do that hard sell that yeah,
that's difficult. When you're selling, you're solving a problem for
someone where you're finding a solution to something, or you're
or you're offering them something they want or need.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
That's why we don't it. That's why we don't like
sales calls. You need to build relationships with people. Everyone
needs to build a relationship. If I'm not building a
relationship with you, and I don't know you, and I've
not met you, and I've not been connected with someone
that knows me and thinks that I can use your service.
I won't use you. What's the point because people haven't
built good relationships with people? If that makes sense, I.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Just think there was you know. But even if you
don't know somebody, you know, if I go and buy something,
If I go and buy a pair of shoes from
the shop, I don't have a relationship with the with
the person selling the shoes, that's different. That's it's sort
of yes, isn't it?
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Isn't Okay, I'm talking about things within your business.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
But if it's a very expensive pair of shoes, it's
still an investment, isn't it. And so there are certain
things that you need to know about trust. You know,
if you're if you're spending a thousand pounds on a
pair of shoes, there are things that you need to
know about your ability to take those shoes back or
do various bits and pieces. There are still questions, And
I think you can still approach people when you don't
know them, but don't give them a pile of crap.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Yeap, okay?
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Interesting have you ever had have you ever been approached
by somebody to buy your services as an accountant? Where
they don't know you. Oh, interesting, because most of our
clients come from word of mauth so so do hours. However,
there are a couple hall where they have actively found
(22:04):
us on LinkedIn.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Okay, I've never had anyone come from LinkedIn. We have Okay,
maybe I'm doing something different than LinkedIn and.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
That, but but there are people who will that you
know at some point, you know, I can envisage people
coming to you where there hasn't been a relationship, even
though most about most of the work that we do
comes either other clients recommend them to us for a
work press exactly, or people recommend or somebody else has
recommended them and so they've found us somebody situation. But
(22:36):
I don't think it's essential. I don't. I don't think
it's essential.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
I mean, if you're if you're using LinkedIn, or you're
using trust Pilot or something. People might come directly because
they see positive reviews or something somebody else has said,
and they're the kind of person who's like, well, I
need to find somebody who's good. I've heard loads of
I've read loads of reviews that these people are good.
I'll give them a creed.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Yeah, tell you where the difference might be as it happens.
So the people that have found us are people that
I wouldn't and I'm not going to give any names
out here, but they're people who you wouldn't necessarily expect
to be moving and networking in business circles. So they
are people who are working in like niched areas of
(23:24):
finance and that sort of thing. They're not out they
may be working internationally, so they're not in our local
they're not in our y bars, they're not in our
local groups, so they don't know people to recommend. There
isn't anybody that they know that can say, do you
know somebody who does? And so they've actually gone out looking.
(23:44):
So they've looked in Google, which is really what we're
looking for when we optimize to turn up on Google.
We're looking for people who don't know us, Yeah, to
find us, aren't we Yeah we are, and very often
on LinkedIn it's slightly different. But what we would like
to happen is that people who don't know us also
find us. But the sales process, I think it's just
(24:05):
about being honest. Know what you do, know what you
can do, know what your limitations are, and be honest.
About it.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
Yeah, that makes sense, right.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
There's enough offering on for me, isn't it. So now
I've got to find something that went well. Have not? Okay,
I'll tell you what has gone well for me over
the last month or so is that I have been
looking for an operations manager, somebody who can help me
keep keep all of the moving parts of me and
(24:36):
my business together, that can help me with this, and
I couldn't. I was having trouble finding somebody, actually, and
one of the reasons that it wasn't working was that
I was looking for initially a PA. So I was
out looking for a PA, a personal assistant, somebody who
(24:56):
would be doing that. This is actually really about how
import words are. And I spoke to some but actually,
you know, you're just not going to do what it
is I need you to do. And then I thought, oh,
perhaps I need a project manager because I have lots
of things going on. And it wasn't a project manager either.
(25:18):
So I spoke to a few project managers. No, I
don't know, it just was nothing wrong with them, It
just wasn't it. And then I actually started thinking about
words and roles and jobs and who does what so
much the same as for me, there's a very big
difference between a manager yep. A director. Yeah, absolutely, very
(25:41):
very different sometimes, but I think people get them very
very confused. So I went and took my own advice
and really thought about what I was looking for and
asking for, and I came up with operations manager. Okay,
that's not They're not sitting inside a deep project. They're
actually sitting between me and my team and making sure
(26:05):
that everything that I want to happen is going to
happen and is communicated properly, and that we're talking about
the right dates, times, venues, and that everything that is
needed to be correct for all of that lot to
happen happens. And that is an operations manager. And I
found it. I found somebody, but I found.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Somebody that's even better.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
And she stood up at a networking event she spoke
and what it's you. It's you, And I actually had
a meeting with that that day at that event. That's
really good. It was the weirdest, it's the weirdest thing.
So I think my message there is no exactly what
it is that you want. Really really think about the
words and who you and the role that you're looking for. Okay,
(26:50):
and also just sort of bide your time and keep
an eye out. You know. I decided that rather than
going through all of this recruitment, i'd actually just I'm
going to meet you, whoever you are, I'm going to
meet you. And I just kept an eye out for them,
and they came and they arrived brilliant.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
It's our universe speaking.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Yes, it's just I don't know, perhaps widening your expectations
about where you find somebody. I think typically when we
say we need to recruit and get somebody in our business,
we go down this process, don't we We did where
we go, Okay, well, this is what I need, and
here's a job specification and a person specification, and this
is what that is. And these are the routes that
I'm going to go down to find that person. And
(27:32):
I'm going to and they're going to send in application forms,
whereas I finally just sort of went, okay, but you know,
they're out here.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
Yeah, they've got to be.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
They're here somewhere, and I'm going to meet them, will
be in the wine.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Bar sometimes exactly. Yeah, Sometimes you need to go through
those processes because then you're in the middle of it
and you think, no, this isn't right. Yeah, and that
then leads you to the right to the right thing,
if I might add there, I put out an advert
a few months to go on LinkedIn for appointment setters,
(28:04):
and I was in dated with people. Okay, but you
know what is an appointment setter for you? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (28:10):
Measiley looking after the diary, that.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Sort of thing exactly. So I got these highly qualified
people who have been chief executive pas, who can manage
a diary, and what I needed people who can do
cold calling. Yeah, so I had to adjust. But I
didn't realize that because other colleagues that I work with,
that's what they call them, they can't have appointments centers. Yeah,
(28:33):
so you have to go through that process because it
wasn't until I had seventeen applications people that were fantastic.
But I was just thinking, when you make two hundred
cars a day, probably.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Not, but would they be any good? You know, I
can make appointments with anybody you like. That's just a
job chart. No, no, no, I can think of nothing worse.
Not not working for you, Jane, But that's just not
But I am really good at that sort of thing.
I can just I can make appointments, yeah, because they'll
(29:08):
be useless. Your friend all day on the phone talking
to people who don't want to join the I have
some nice chats. Yeah. So it's the words really really matter,
you know. Are you a manager? Are you a director?
Are you a project manager? Are you a general manager?
(29:28):
Because it really does matter, doesn't it? It does? Right,
So away from the happiest stuff on to what didn't work.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
So I had to do a lot of Excel spreadsheet
work in my in my job, and you know, last
week I was doing this big, massive core report and
as I was doing it, it was all these errors,
Like all the figures were in confine. It was the micros,
something connected to this, connected to that, and it was
(30:00):
driving me crazy. It was just driving me crazy that
it wasn't working. So I kept checking it, closing it,
opening it, checking it, closing. It was going on like
this for a whole day. Everything was in there, everything
it needed to be in there, but it just kept
coming up with these errors. And I passed it over. Well,
(30:20):
actually you might have gone well passed it over and
I said, could you find those errors? Ding ding D
done by the administrator.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Hang on a minute, doesn't sound like something that.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Has gone wrong doesn't know that. In my eyes, I
was pulling my hair out and somebody else. It just
goes to show you need to delegate. Yeah, I'm an
accountant and I need to do it myself. I put
all the figures in, but the micros were not working
in the background. Because it's background. It's like given to
you by the authorities to fill in, and it just
(30:51):
was I was pulling my hair out, so I passed
it over. And sometimes it needs those fresh it dies.
I think often it needs fresh eyes. And it just
goes to show that delegation is so key. You can't
do everything on your own. And that's what I was thinking. No, no, no,
I'll get it out there. I'll get I'll get it done,
(31:11):
blah blah. All the information was there, it was just
some micros were not sinking properly.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
I think sometimes also one of the problems with people
who have our types of brain is that you disappeared
down into the rabbit hole of problem solving, yes, and
you don't realize you're in the rabbit hole until like
three days of past.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
I could have been for another week, do this.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Three days have gone past, and you're still looking at
the spreadshe pressing buttons, I really doing back up saving
them as something else. So now you've got three hundred
copies of the spreadsheep.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
I was going great by the hour, seriously, and you
know that was what was really going wrong. It's like,
you know, find someone to help you sold that problem.
You can't do it.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
So what would in your own So when if you
have gone I don't have a tactic for this, to
be honest. So if you have gone down the rabbit hole,
it's about recognizing that actually you're not solving anything. No,
you should be passing this over. But it's really difficult
to stop churning.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
You know, it is one hundred percent is But just
like sometimes I get my husband to look at something
for me. I mean he's a company, he's company secretary
in a group company. So and he's a qualified bookkeeper.
So I said, could you just brunch your eyes over
that I'm missing something and he'll go, oh, it's because
of this, is this, And it's because I'm not seeing
(32:38):
the wood for the tree.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
And it's about having that discipline, isn't it or no,
not discipline, having a system in place that says Okay, dumpling,
you've had You've been staring at the street for eight hours. There,
let's you know, it should an alarm, you know, set
an alarm. Set How long should this take me? Three hours?
It's alarm. Okay, so set an alarm. It's three hours.
(33:02):
I've been looking at this and churning it around. I'm
stuck on a problem. Okay, It's time to either stop
or give it to somebody else.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Yeah, somebody else. So delegate it, you know, get somebody
else to help you. You're not on your own. There
must be someone that you could use.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
I think even if you stop, you know, so if
you're able to to, well put it like this. If
you're not able to, I think it's actually going to
get any better anyway, is it? But just stop, go
away from it, you know, have at least an hour away,
Go out for a walk, do something different, Listen to
some loud music, something anything to break, you know, to
break the rhythm so that you can come back and
(33:37):
look at it fresh.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
Yeah, you're right. Sometimes you're in your own worst enemy.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
See, well, you've you decided to be an accountant. I'm just.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
What you could also do is what quite a lot
you know when you when you're scrolling and looking at
the at the different news that's going on, and suddenly
there comes up this advert saying, look at this image,
there's a cat in here somewhere, spot where the cat is?
So you could do that. This is my report. There's
something wrong. I can't quite put my finger on it.
(34:07):
And exactly so all your spreadsheets your genius.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
So that's what you need. You need exploding cats in
your spreadsheet program.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
But it wasn't the figures. The figures were perfect and stuff.
It was micros. I had to put nought This is it.
This sounds silly. It was I had to put naughts
in places that you don't put figures.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Oh yeah, yeah, I get that. Get I get that
because it will see it as infinity or it will
see it's nothing. There's no get. But it's so nice
when somebody asks you something like that. Somebody says, I've
been trying, I've been trying to work the days. Can
you ever look at it? And you go, oh, yeah, is.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
That exactly what happens?
Speaker 2 (34:53):
I love those and I'm always quite cool about it.
Could they go no, it's nothing, No, don't mention it please,
So anyway, you don't need an any in your life.
So what didn't go well for you? Jane?
Speaker 1 (35:13):
I run out of wine? Oh no, no, what didn't
go well? Very similar? Not similar to you, but but
kind of. I'm always chasing targets and I had a
great target. I missed it this month by thirty nine pounds.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Oh no.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
And the reason I missed it by thirty nine pounds
is because I was so busy with all of those
fantastic appointments. Yeah, Mike. At about five o'clock on the
thirtieth of October, my laptop decided to die. So I
transferred to my tablet out all the emails, and the
following morning at four o'clock, I fought, I wonder if
(35:54):
that person's done what they should have done, so that
adds to the target. And then I realized that the
tablet hadn't sent any of them because they were all
in the albums. So there you go.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
Oh my words.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
No, So what would you do about to stop that
happening in the future?
Speaker 1 (36:13):
Do less? Actually take another hour to review? Calm down?
But you know what it's like when you're doing your
finishing work.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
You've just got totally guess in the background saying dinner's
ready and you're like yeah, yeah, yeah, no, dinner's ready,
and it's like okay, and you sit down and then
you get chatting and then it happens.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
But do you s sorry, sorry, no, please? Do you
send the same thing in the email altogether? When you're
sending the email out, apart from changing the name and
making a little bit personal is it usually the same
information that you put in the.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
Email of it is the same, and I think you
personalize it.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
Yeah, I'm thinking of something like because we in our firm,
we use like mauchimp, and I send it out a
campaign that has an extra and going to places and stuff,
and it actually personalizes it for you. So send it. Yeah. Sorry,
that could be one of the tool that we can
talk about. But mauchim is really useful for us because
(37:12):
it can personalize. It can put the person's name, and
it's like a subscription process so they can click it
and then do what they need to do and then
you'll know that they looked to that email and they've
actually clicked on whatever you get.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
That's good. Yeah, I haven't used mailchimp for years. You've
written it down because it's time to ring.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
Is it?
Speaker 3 (37:29):
That's what I was thinking. And then you don't have
to b C see anybody or C see anybody because
it's all they're connected that they've got the email like
you personally gave it to them.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
I mean, I don't know about you, guys. I feel
a little bit overwhelmed at the moment by all of
the different tool systems. I know, we're going to talk
about this in a minute. Yeah, every second, And at
the moment it's been fantastic. But a lot of the
people I've talked to, well, we do AI, we do this,
we do this. I must have had about fifteen conversations
in the last week with people who do AI. What
(38:02):
do I struggle with is how's that different from the
other person and how does that fit in and what
can that do for business?
Speaker 3 (38:09):
Yeah, and I met some.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Really interesting ladies who it might be interesting to have
them on the show one time. Who two ladies who
come from the financial background, financial services, And what they've
done is they've created something with AI. But it's a
tool to actually help businesses to maximize the use. So
if you're using let's say chat GBT, do you understand
(38:37):
how to use it? So that you can get So
it's about them sitting down saying what do you want
out of it? What do you need for your business?
And then they will then tell you and help you
to understand how to get the maximum.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
I think, I think what you've just said there is
the key. You know, there are so many tools and
AI has just brought it just I don't know, just
magnified that by squillions and billions, and there are so
many wraps for things like chat GPT as well. I've
actually found that chat GPT can just do most of
it's sort of out of the box actually, but for
(39:14):
me because I also have there's so much stuff. You know,
there's so many news letter tools. I know so much
about newsletter tools, CRMs, all of that sort of thing,
that my starting point is always what do I actually
want to achieve? But also take it back another level.
So say I say something to say my initial thing
(39:34):
is I want to send newsletters to, you know, one
hundred people for insance, I want to send news that.
I want to send emails to one hundred people. Okay, lovely,
what okay? But why for what purpose? Well? Why do
I want to send emails to people?
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (39:49):
So that I can tell them about my X Y
and Z. Okay, why do I want to tell them
about my X Y and Z so that I can
increase my customer base for And then actually starts to go, okay,
what are other ways that I can actually do that?
And I think a lot of people we get this
when people come to us for websites, they want a
website to do this. Sometimes I don't need a website
at all because they want to deliver a membership, you know,
(40:11):
they want to deliver lessons to people. Well, actually you
can do that with a newsletter system. You don't need
to spend, however, much on a membership website. So what
do you actually want to achieve? And it could be
that you can achieve what you want to do with
the newsletters by ringing a few people. Could be that
you can't. But so many different tools do different things.
(40:31):
What do you want to achieve? What's what's the outcome?
Not the output? The output from me is I've sent
one hundred newsletters. The outcome is that I have three
clients new I have three new clients. Is there another
way of doing that? So we can just get tool?
I'm quite techy, I enjoyed. I enjoy learning new things,
(40:54):
and we can get quite sort of. I can go
in new tools. I could be in their weeks looking
at new tools.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
It is fascinating. I'm not an expert to any of
these things, but just a small story. I have a
new client for something else that I do. I was
telling Sean, who's in Berlin, okay, and I lived in
Germany for a long time, so I speak fluent German,
and I'm really looking forward to working with them because
(41:22):
it means I can speak German, which you don't often do.
So when it came to write them the proposal, I
wrote it all in German and then I thought I'll
hang on a minute here because usually I would use
a person to correct, and I used to send it
to a correction service just to make sure it was perfect.
(41:42):
Who can I send this to? And then I thought, oh,
we'll try chat GBT. Stuck it in, came out perfectly.
In fact, the person speaking to me, who's known me
for a while said, your German's got really good, Jane.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
Ye.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Last time I went on to chat GBT, it started
speaking to me in Germany.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Now it only speaks to me in German.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
That's fascinating.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
It's someps to mean Welsh, Welsh.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
I keep telling it.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
I'm not Welsh, but yeah, so easy, Yeah, I think
the key message what was it that didn't work for you?
Speaker 1 (42:24):
Remember what didn't work for me? Oh?
Speaker 2 (42:26):
That was it? You didn't presend, Yes, you didn't prestend.
And then I don't know, I went off down talking
about goodness knows what? Okay, what didn't work? Do you know?
There's actually been quite a lot that hasn't worked. I
went away to Portugal for a few days. It was
supposed to be a break, and I'm not sure that
(42:47):
it was. So I didn't have a proper break because
I was dipping in and doing work and thinking I
should be working whatever. So I've sort of spent the
last three weeks struggling to to work really because I
did take a proper break, because I couldn't let myself stop,
and so I've been stop, start, stop starting. Really sort
of quite tired over the last few weeks. So I
(43:10):
haven't really been going out a lot either. And if
you're not careful, if somebody like me, you can sort
of like almost go inside. I call it indoor cat
and outdoor cat and I've been very sort of indoor
cat and I need to get out and be out
there and sort of get energized, and so I've been
(43:31):
struggling with that a bit. Now I've got you know,
I've got lots of stuff that I want to get done,
and i've been doing not emergency stuff because I don't
really have that, but just sort of not doing the
stuff that I want to do to move things forward,
you know, with the radio show and that sort of thing.
I've been doing. Okay, I've got courses that I have
to get published, I've got this I have to do,
I've got events I have to run. Let's just get
that going. And the other stuff, the aspirational stuff, what
(43:54):
I you know, where I want to go in the future,
has just been a bit. Oh. So I just haven't
taken proper break and I've been tired. So sorry, it's
not for sympathy. So you need to get out, Yeah,
I actually, yeah, I do. It's it's just the way
that I react, and sometimes you don't notice that it's happening,
(44:16):
and that can be the problem. So you haven't had
enough of a break, You're feeling a bit tired, and
so you sort of you. I also broke the foot,
so I've been a bit sort of hobbling around a
bit so but not getting out as much as I should,
you know. And then like you can't get your jeans on.
It's like, oh, I've got some tracks himself, and now
(44:39):
I've got I haven't put on any way as such.
It's just that I've been wearing really baggy clothes, so
everything feels really tight and horrible. So but that's it.
I haven't a lesson. Take a proper break. Yeah, and
you need to take a proper break normally when I'm
going away and I know I'm going away, I'm not
going to mention your holiday again that you didn't have.
Speaker 3 (45:00):
No, I'm just saying, if it's really a holiday, don't
take your don't take your laptop with you. I don't
take your laptop with you. Take take okay, take a
what do you call those tablets with you or your
phone just to check in. Yeah, but you see, if
i'm after.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
That's so different for me. If I check in and
something's happened that I need to deal with, it will
take me five times longer to do it on my iPad.
Speaker 3 (45:30):
Then it would an automated service saying I am away
for a week. If it is very very urgent, then yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
But even if it is very very urgent and they
come through with very very urgent, it's going to take
me five times longer to sort out the very very urgent.
I may not even be able to solve it on
the iPad. Yeah. I think it's about mind and not
about activity. Does that make sense. I think it's about
(46:00):
delegat No, No, not even that, because I do have
people to delegate to. I think it's about mine. So
if there is an emergency, if you really do need
to do something, you go, I'm sorting this out. Okay,
this is what I'm going to do. I didn't have
any emergencies, by the way. This is what I'm going
to do. And it's going to take me fifteen minutes,
yeah to do that, and I'm done.
Speaker 3 (46:19):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
My not taking time off is I really should be
doing that. I didn't do that before I left it,
and it doesn't matter. It wouldn't have happened if I
was there anyway, or I should have done that. I
haven't done that all. You know, it would be really
good if I got down and wrote that and did
this and did that, And it's about it's actually a
mindset of not switching off. Yeah, you know, tuning in
for half an hour a day wouldn't be a problem.
It's twenty four hours if I haven't done, and no
(46:42):
I should be doing.
Speaker 3 (46:43):
Yeah, no, I get that.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
So that's mindset anyway, lesson learned back again, right, what
is everybody reading? So you could be reading, you could
be listening to, you could be watching, doesn't really matter.
It could be fiction, it could be for business, be
for pleasure. What you're reading at the moment.
Speaker 3 (47:02):
I'm part of the book club. So I'm reading a
book called Crackle, and it's really interesting because it's for
the season, and this season, obviously October is autumn. At
the end of the month, there is you know, kids
like it, don't they the Halloween things and stuff like that.
So it's about these two relationship, these two women. This
(47:25):
woman's just moved into an area and she's met this lady,
and this lady has this big mansion house. She's become
very friendly with her, and she's actually a witch fantasy.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
Is this a fun witch or is this a burning
at the steak book?
Speaker 3 (47:42):
No, this is a really good This is a really
really good book and Crackle it's called and for the
life of me, can I remember the author's name. No,
I'm sorry, you just have to look at it. I'm
listening to it on audio and it's so funny. It's
funny comedian kind of references in there. There's also, you know,
(48:05):
there is some like jumpy scenes and stuff like that,
but it is so cool. I'm really enjoying it as
one of those books you really want to listen to
because it's funny, brings in a child out of you,
and people forget about that in business, about bringing their
in a child out of them. And if you can
read something that's lighthearted, fun and something like that, why
(48:26):
not then having serious books all the time or serious
podcasts find yourself absolutely people forget about themselves in business.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
Yeah, no, you're You're absolutely right. And I think reading
a story book is as important, if not more important,
than actually reading business books. Dane. What you indulging at
the moment.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
I'm not reading business books though, but I'm not. I
need to do more of that. I started reading a
thriller very recently. Can't remember what it is because I
stopped reading it and the whole story has gone out
of my head. So I need to start all over again,
since you know, you get completely waylaid by social media,
by the tablet, by looking at the news. But what
(49:08):
am I doing? My mother passed away two and a
half three years ago now, and she left me a
whole collection of her political books. She was interested in politics,
and They've been sitting there on the shelf and I've
not been reading them. I mean across all different parties.
So I've started reading that Margaret Thatcher, she's got that
(49:31):
whole truptrialology of Margaret Thatcher books. But she's got EO power,
she's got one of the Labor Party guys who used
to be a postman. She's got Barack Obama. So I've
started reading these, reading these books. And I started with
Margaret Thatcher because I found I found I always found
(49:53):
her fascinating. But yeah, so that's what I've been starting
to do. It's start reading. It's dipping and yeah that's good.
Speaker 2 (50:03):
What's an interesting topic? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (50:04):
Absolutely, while they're all there, there's probably about three hundred
of them.
Speaker 2 (50:08):
Yeah you go where that to keep you going for
a while?
Speaker 3 (50:10):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (50:11):
Unfortunately, because my iPad and my phone are all engaged
in videoing. At the moment, I can't look up. I
can't look this up. I can pop it into the
notes later, though. So I'm reading a book at the moment.
I'm listening to it on Audible, and it's a nonfiction book,
but it's actually about writing fiction stories. So it's quite interesting.
(50:32):
It's how stories are woven together and why our brains
were sort of hook into this, the biology, if you like,
behind our brain's hooking into a story. And you know,
it's one of the things that I'm very often saying
to people when they are exhibiting, is you know, share
your story now, all right, This is a slightly different technique,
(50:54):
you know, this is this is about writing books that
people hook into. So it's about writing fiction books and
stories whereas you know, but in many respects that the
core principle is the same that people are interested in stories,
they want to hear your story. Don't come and tell
people what you do. Don't worry about having hundreds of
Leeflet's designed and printed. Just actually share your story as
(51:15):
your starting point. And I was also as I was
listening to this, thinking about it in the context of
actually setting goals and maybe writing a story for moving forwards.
I'm finding a way that I can actually do this,
because sometimes people have trouble setting goals and planning forwards.
(51:37):
But I thought maybe I could tell the story of
my life, not backwards, but where it's going actually as
a story that's unfolding, and the different chapters and what's
coming up and what I want to come up. There's
a little bit of actually, this is what's happening right now.
So right now I'm looking at how the radio show
and the radio station and all that sort of thing
can change. Well, okay, I could write a story about
(51:58):
that and where is it going? Instead of having just
a goal, let's do it as a bit more of
a narrative.
Speaker 1 (52:03):
But what you're doing there is you're involving everybody else,
and also that that motivates you. But also you've opened
your mouth and said this is where we're going. It's
just it keeps you on just.
Speaker 2 (52:15):
A different it's just a different to me. I'm not
sure it is a different approach to everybody else generally,
but for me, it's a different approach. And here's a
goal of I don't know, you're going to do this
and have this many listeners this many exhibitors and this
much income or whatever with actually telling a story about
my journey, my business journey and where my business is going.
(52:35):
So I can't remember the name of the book, but
that's it. If you go and look on audible you
probably find it.
Speaker 1 (52:40):
It's read that helps, it's.
Speaker 2 (52:47):
Red and it's got a white head on it ahead
something about stories. So there you go right then onwards
to tall. So what are you using at the moment,
what are you recommending?
Speaker 3 (53:03):
Well, it's interesting you should say about AI. I've got
a friend who's actually she's she's actually does sales marketing
and she's actually selling her own sort of branding on
AI in regards to AI of yourself, So videos about yourself.
So actually you're you become your A, Your AI becomes you,
(53:27):
and it does you like you are and moves like you,
and it takes you know, it's you know, So if
you're doing like social Instagram and stuff like that, how
do you know they're not all some of them are
not AI. They're probably AI lead. But that's what she does.
(53:49):
She does AI approach. It's like your avatar, but but
on you, it's actually you.
Speaker 2 (53:56):
I quite like that idea. I don't like fighting out
the exactly well, I think you need to have you
need to have those ideas to start with. You know.
One of the things I found about using AI is
you know, yeah, all right, you may be able to
get it to write a book, but it's not going
to be a good book. It has to be you
have to be in there going no not that this
exactly and that. I always like to think of it
(54:19):
as I'm not doing stuff by AIM you, I'm doing
stuff with AI exactly that.
Speaker 3 (54:26):
So it's putting up ideas like as if you were blogging,
but your AI actually talks it it is you about
the AIU. And she she owns a vip stars that's
her company name, Katira name is and she's in Malta,
and she's been doing things like this with you know,
(54:47):
lots of marketing and social people around the world. In fact,
she's been in Forbes, she's been in magazines like Vogue
and stuff like that, and based on her products, and
I just thought it was really interesting thing. I was like,
how can I make that work for me? And so yeah,
and the sign up wasn't really that expensive to be
(55:08):
I think it was like ninety nine dollars for the year.
I mean, what's that when you got all this sort
of material.
Speaker 2 (55:15):
I might have to go and have I might have
to go and have a look at that because I
don't like although we're videoing else today, I don't like
seeing myself on camera and film. I just don't. So
that's my challenge.
Speaker 3 (55:27):
But that, Yeah, so you could be standing on a
plane or getting on a plane, you could be doing anything.
You could be walking in Paris and talking and not
actually physically do you say, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (55:39):
Honesty just yeah, in the wine bar, in.
Speaker 3 (55:43):
The wine bar. Yeah, let's sit in the wine bar
with a glass and you can't make it.
Speaker 2 (55:49):
But I think to some extent that sort of thing
you're talking about, honesty is only dishonest when you're using
it for the wrong purpose. So if you're standing in
front of a great big car, or you're getting on
a plane and you're going, hey, I sold this, I
did that, I made this, I bought this investment program,
and this is what I've got. Whereas if you're doing
(56:10):
it as a not necessarily tongue in cheek, but if
you're doing it as information and this is what I thought,
you're and you're being honest about it and maybe making
a bit of a joke about it or saying, you know,
you know, I'm love to be I'm walking around Paris,
Isn't it lovely? I'd love to be doing that. As
long as you're not using it for dishonest purposes, I
(56:31):
don't think it really matters. No, it's sort of okay, yeah.
Speaker 3 (56:35):
Because it's marketing tool. You just use it as a
marketing tool. You haven't got time, so let your AI
you do it for you, so you can go off
and do your other.
Speaker 2 (56:43):
But you also have to think about why would you
I can know why I would choose to be walking
around Paris, and I would bring that into what I
was doing exactly. But I have to have been to
Paris to know that. There has to be a sentiment
behind what I'm doing. There has to be a story
behind what I'm doing.
Speaker 3 (56:58):
I'm thinking along the lines of if you're all consultant,
you know, you could be talking about places romantic and
stuff like that, and if you're getting on a plane,
it could be in aviation and you're talking about stuff
with aviation. So the clients that she works with a
kind of those kind.
Speaker 2 (57:14):
Of you can use it authentically because you may want
to say something atually quite quickly. Something might have opened
in Paris, there might be something that's happening that you
want to talk about, but you're not in a position
to get on a plane and go there. Now, I
think there are all sorts of authentic ways that you
can use it exactly. So that's vip stars. What about you.
Speaker 1 (57:36):
I can always send a link well, I apart from
chatting to chat DBT that I've called Einstein.
Speaker 2 (57:45):
Yours is called Einstein, Mine's called Fenn, Mine's called SAM.
I have. Mine's pretentious for.
Speaker 1 (57:54):
A long time to have CRM because I've got business
card coming out of my ears and stuff. But also
I've had lots of demonstrations from different AI can do this,
it can do this, and my problem is that I
don't kind of visualize exactly how that can work. But
for example, in sales software, AI software that can make
(58:22):
cold calling and leads for me that doesn't kind of
ring true. And I but I now have a piece
of software called go Engauge, which is a CRM system.
It is, it does, it can do newsletters. I'd like
to talk to you. Shan't because with your expertise, maybe
you can give me a steer about how good it
is and go on, and it's going to create the
(58:46):
other day I said, I need to start a community
because going back to what we were talking about having
the communities keeping keeping customers focused, keeping helping customers to
interact with others to use their different services, and this
system does it as well. So next week I'm having
(59:07):
a complete demonstration on how that could possibly work for
me in my business.
Speaker 2 (59:12):
Wow, and that's go engage. I am. So my tools are.
It's still at the moment and has been for a while,
something called craft Craft, which is with the c Now,
if you think this is probably the best I can
(59:35):
describe it as is it's like Notion, where it's pages
within pages and you can I don't know, organize things
by toggles and that sort of thing. So if you
think Notion, okay, but it doesn't have quite as many
(59:56):
moving parts as Notion. I spent weeks in Notion programming databases. Weeks.
It went on and on and on. I mean, they
were wonderful. They will work, they will linked together. They
were stupendous. The thing is, nobody could work them apart
from me. I had a lovely time. I've got nothing
done for months. So Craft is a little bit like that,
(01:00:19):
but it's a lot simpler. And one of the things
I learned with it with my brain is to have
everything in one place, is to not have three hundred
and fifty contexts, three thousand labels, different colors, moving parts,
you know, sort of gears, levers, and goodness knows what
(01:00:41):
else is going on. So I've sort of at the
moment put my management all in one place on one
document in Craft, and I found that the way that
it's organized actually enables me to do that, and that
I can also share those documents with other people in
my team, and that you can edit in real time
as well. Okay, so it's actually a really nice little tool.
Speaker 1 (01:01:09):
Like Trello.
Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
No no, So Trello works based on cards, which is
really really handy depending on what you want to do.
But it is very card So it's based If you
think cards, it's little bits that you can move around
from one place to another. It's not. It's not so
if you think a card could represent, it could be
(01:01:36):
an entire project, or it could be a task in
a project, and so it can be very sort of
a lot of these things can be very multi layered,
and you can sort them out by documents, projects, tasks, subtasks,
sub subtasks, contexts, and there are lots of different ways
and lots of different depths that you can take these
things too. And sometimes that's actually the problem is if
(01:01:59):
you're not careful, you can just seriously overcomplicate everything. And
what I've done is strip the whole thing right back
to say is strip the whole thing right back to say, Okay,
there's one place where you go to and everything is
in there. So very very quickly we are going to
(01:02:19):
do very like one lineup word for the month, advice
for the month ahead, very quickly, what's your advice for
the month ahead.
Speaker 3 (01:02:27):
And delegate if you get stuck.
Speaker 2 (01:02:29):
Okay, your advice for the month ahead, where's the button?
My advice for the month ahead is see much. If
you're organizing yourself, keep it in one space, don't have
too many moving bits and pieces and try it out
and see how that works. So I'm Sean Murphy. This
has been the Women in Business radio show, a co
(01:02:50):
host Adelle and Jane Martin. We will see you. We
will be back at all some point in the future.
I think it's a couple of weeks, isn't it. We'll
be back and we'll have another episode of the Women
in Business radio show. I have fun out there for now.
Bye bye bye
Welcome to the Women in Business Radio show with Sean Murphy,
connecting women in business around the globe.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hello, and welcome into the Women in Business Radio so studio.
So we are going to have our regular business round
up for the month, and my co host today is
well as usual for this show, Mikhael and also in
the studio with us today, we have a lovely Jane Roltin,
who was a very good friend to all of us.
(00:36):
And actually, what I'm going to do, Jane, is I'm
going to let you tell people what you do.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Well. I'm a business connector, so I connect different businesses
together a mutual benefit. Some businesses might want a new client,
some businesses might want services and products that other people offer.
So what I do is I spend time listening to
those peopleunderstanding what they do, and then trying to connect
(01:03):
and help to grow each each person's business.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
And you've been doing this, This isn't a new thing.
Is that you've been doing this for quite a while.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Yeah, I've been doing it quite a while. It started.
I'm Alwoso, a membership advisor for the Federation of Small Businesses.
During the COVID period, we had lots of conversations. There
wasn't a lot of business happening because people were very
nervous about spending money. But it made me realize, you know,
if you're going to speak to thirty forty businesses in
(01:30):
a week and find out what they do, what added
value can you give them, which would be connecting them
because a lot of people are good at what they do.
But as I just saw, I was out just before
this chat taking my dog to the groomers, and the
dog groomers the dog groomer asked me what I do,
(01:52):
and they said, oh, we're in telecoms, but we're really
good at what we do, but we find it difficult
to find customers. There you go, Wow, I can help
them to do that because I know people in telecoms,
and I know lots of dog groomers, and I know
lots of people on the radio.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
And there you go, and this is ere it works.
It goes round and round. We just ought to get
a great, big bus. I always thought this because we
could stop off at the wine bar, couldn't we We
could like top up, top up, and off we go. Yeah,
we have a few beer drinkers, monks, just don't we
not menty, we can put them at the back absolutely
and off we go. Right, Okay, so this show is
(02:31):
our round up. We are going to be talking for
the next or let's just say, relaxed hour or so,
maybe a little bit less about what has gone well
this month, what hasn't gone well this month, and maybe
some lessons that have been associated with that. What we're reading,
listening to, watching. It could be that we're just staring
at the wall, what tools we're using, what we're finding
(02:55):
useful to use, and some advice for the month ahead,
all from sort of three very very business different some
busy business women in quite different sort of walks of life.
Really because Miquel Michel does, I'm going to tell you
what Miquel does. Michael does all sorts of things. She's
she's an accountant, she's an international accountant. She also runs
(03:16):
Future Insights. She's which is a consultancy managing accounts for
other people. You help you support property businesses, don't you
as well? And also they're working with some very strange
women run now brand new Savvy Skills, which is a
screening hub business which is a training hub training people
with what I call hardcore business skillstely so things like finance,
(03:43):
not so much things like confidence, although we could bounce
out into that, couldn't we. But it's more about, actually,
there are some key skills that you need to get
to run your business if you're a director, the stuff
that you have to do with your finances, with all
of this sort of thing. Absolutely, and it's about. It's
about what I call the hardcore train. It's not fluffy stuff.
So I don't know what I do really, I don't
(04:08):
know what I do. I run, I host business showcases,
I host, I do this. I published magazines. I don't know.
Flap around a lot really, so I work with lots
of people. I run events. Mainly, I spend time in
wine bars just looking busy.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
That must be where we met in a wine bar,
I mean last wine bar.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Soun's good to me.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
It's a terrible life.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
That could be one recommendation for the viewers. Good business
always starts in wine bars, wine bars, and it carries
on in it sort.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Of does, doesn't it. And one of the things look
no structure, no structure at all. I've written something down.
I've got four lines in five four lines, which is
quite a lot for me. But straight away. Where are
we We're bimbling off down into another road. But you're
absolutely right because and in the meetings that we have
or they get togethers, it may be in a wine bar,
(05:13):
but it is across the board, isn't it. There will
be people from the trades. There's professionals, there's crafters, there's
holistic people, and it's a real and right mix because
we all need.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Each other exactly.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
And when I said to somebody once you know, oh no,
well no, you know we're off too. I quite like
it when we all get together in wine bars, the
wine bars. Well actually but you know, yes, yes it
is who gives us stuff. It's only snobbish if you
think it's snobbish. Nobody else is there does And that's
It's about doing business, isn't it. It's about those conversations
that happen.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Yeah, exactly, and that the wine bars are business too.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
There you go, and when they think when they when
it's a great event, then the people are in there
like to go. They go there and it's great time,
they take their partners there in a great time and
more business.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
How it works.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Absolutely, And whilst we're talking about that, there are so
many different places that you may never think about that
you can actually go and have business meetings places that
are really maybe really keen to host you. So, for instance,
we have a meeting next month with Business for Medway,
which is at sare Karting. Now, they're not a it's
(06:28):
not it's not a meeting room as such. It's not
the sort of it's not a boardroom that you go
and hire. It's not a council office, it's not a
coworking space. It's a suppace where people go and enjoy
themselves on carts. But it's a brilliant place to go
and have a meeting. It's good fun, it's different. They're
more than welcome to you know, more than happy to
welcome us. It's show you know, we get the chance
(06:48):
to talk about our businesses and what we're doing, and
they also get a chance to show other people other
businesses are the business people what they're doing. It's it's
a really really good way to collaborate. So if you
are thinking of running a meeting for your business, or
it could be that you're delivering a service or you're
meeting someone, always have a think about some of those
other venues where you could go. You know, in the
(07:11):
UK there weatherspoons. Weatherspoons don't have meat, I don't have music.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
No, it's true.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
They have quite a lot of booths and they don't
have music or boom boo boo. They have booze as
well boo or was it boobs? Okay, weatherspoons they do
have booze, but I did say probably have boobs as well,
and they do have but they have booths and they
(07:38):
have really good WiFi and they have plug sockets. And
tell you what, it's a really it's a simple place
to go and sit down. There's no carry on, there's
no fah, there's no fuss, you can get all daitya
and coffee and you can just sit there and have
really quite a quiet meeting to yourself. Yep, you know,
so just think about those sorts of places. Sometimes I
(07:58):
don't know about you, but very often, you know, we
end up going to boardrooms or booking meeting rooms where
there's additional expense which we don't always need. And it's
nice sometimes to get out into the community and share
those sort of community type spaces.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Absolutely, and ideas are made in pubs and it's how
the world has worked for a very very long time.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
It's where it's where the deals.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Had down there.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
If you think of sage, yeah, sage.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Well the accounting people.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
Yeah, the account when they're not just accounting.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
I didn't know if it's that stuff that you put
in your.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Start off as an accounting system. It's all over the world,
including everywhere. They started the idea of the name of
the company being in a booth there. It's two university guys.
He wrote it for his friend's company and they saw,
you know, you remember you used to buy those like
(08:55):
little sage and stuff, not say like sage. What do
they call them? The things that are not book garny.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
No, no, not cubes, not stock cubes. But is this
something you're smoking, not at all?
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Herbs and spices racks? Yes, Well there was a picture
on the wall in this bar and it had Sage,
and they went, what about Sage? And that's where the
name came from.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
It was two partners, was the other one? Not called onion.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
It's always one. I'm just saying, why do we invite
this is a very serious discussion exactly, but I'm just
saying it comes up with ideas.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
They just happened to be looking at an absolute picture
of a spice rack. That was the word I was
trying to get out, and said, oh, Sage, that's that's
where it came from me.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
There you go. I don't want to say no, I
don't know what to say, right, I'll tell you what then,
let's it would be so good if I've actually prepped
any of this for myself at all. So you guys
are going to have to go first, and I know
you haven't prepped it because you don't know what we're
talking about. Okay, So so what has gone well over
(10:17):
the last should we do it the other way around?
And what hasn't gone well? Oh okay, you got gone
well in your head? I did right? Well do that?
Then what's gone well over the last month?
Speaker 3 (10:30):
So last week I was able to meet with the
board in Malta, so flew to Malta. Everyone thinks I
was on holiday, or wasn't on holiday.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
She was on holiday because she said later later this
earlier today she went I'm going on holiday again, okay
next week, which rather which rather suggests that you see
it's subliminal, which means that the previous trip to Malta
was in fact a holiday, was on doesn't.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
All I saw was offices and four walls. I did
go out for dinner one night with my new board members,
and so basically I'm now officially the CFO. Officially I
knew I was going to be the CFO, but officially
the CFO of a bank. And we started all our
quarter reporting last week. I'm really really so yeah. So
(11:25):
I'm now clinked with Dubai and Malta. So I'm loving
it so phenomenal. I can't get the words out.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Its phenomenal.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
That's it. It's the afternoon. You know what the afternoon's
like for me exactly. So anyway, No, that was really good.
As I mentioned, we appointed our first member of team
and administrator stroke book keeper, stroke accountant for the group.
(11:56):
Got nice office. It's all good. Yeah, So that went
well last week and then business was made, some certain
businesses were made last that.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
It was a bit of a whole, wasn't it. These
things just take a long time, don't they did.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
And I also met the UK embassy official like a
closed networking event last week and she was very insight
conversation with her. So yeah, it was a really good week.
So that went well for me last week.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
So this is why we should do it the other
way around. We should have what didn't go well and
then we can finish a bit on a high. Never mind,
never mind, I mean that is wow, well done, thank you,
that's brilliant, thank you. What went well for you?
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Well? One word LinkedIn?
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Yay, Okay.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
We tried a new approach to working with LinkedIn, and
I've got a team making connections for me and I've
been running behind myself with appointments. They're taking a very
direct approach. So it's you know, Hi, it's Jane. This
(13:11):
is what I do think how to look at your business.
Would really like to have a chat with you. I
think it would be valuable that we work together. When
I heard that, I thought, no, that's too direct. I'd
be a little bit more touchy feely. I have people
sending me messages saying, I'm really sorry, Jane, I've been
away on holiday. I'm really sorry. I'd really love to
meet you. My calendar is full. It's been full for
(13:34):
the last month, it's full for this month pretty pretty much. Yeah,
and it's been amazing.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
So is this just messages? You're just messaging people that
you're connected with on LinkedIn. Do you know what you
said was about it being really direct? Is that for
a long time has always been my approach, and I
get really quite not cross. I'm not sure that cross
is the right word. But you see so much sales
(14:01):
training that's talking about overcoming objections. You know, like there's
some sort of secret psychological trick here that you have
to do, that you have to pull the wool over
some people's eyes, that you have to approach it this
way and go on, I'm just doing a survey or
you know, I'm not selling anything. I just you know,
and I don't appreciate being approached to like that. I
(14:24):
feel like I'm being lied to. I think, you know,
if somebody needs your service, all you need to do
is show it to them and answer questions that they
have and be honest. And if they say, oh, does
it do X, Y and Z, you just say no,
it doesn't, because they're going to find out. They are
(14:44):
going to find out that it doesn't do that. So
what on earth is the point of mushing around it?
Just say no, it doesn't, and that's it. Really it doesn't.
And then what I find happens is that it might
not be right for them because you've been quite honest
with them. Actually, I don't think this isn't right for
you because of X, Y and Z, but that they
(15:04):
will if they may well at some point come across
somebody and it is right for them, and they actually
what you need to do, go and have a chat
with these guys because they know that you're on this.
What on earth is the point of all that sub
diffusion carry on? And so I can see why just
an approach, this is what we do. You've got one
of those, you know you've got one of these. This
(15:25):
is what we do. Would you like to have a.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Chat exactly that?
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Would you like? Would you like to have a chat?
It's either yes or no.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
I don't like it either.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
And I see whole people making entire professions out of
smoke mirrors, deceit, yeah, gray areas, And I think, what
what an effort?
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Yeah, it's very disrespectful.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
It is disrespectful.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Most people can pick up on that and they feel
like they're being taken and for a full.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Yeah yeah, and I never really see the point. And
the other thing I get are emails that I've had
a look at your site and there's something and there's
something wrong with it. Did I ask you to.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Didn't work?
Speaker 2 (16:16):
They ask you to go and look at my website.
Of course there's something wrong with it. There's something wrong
with nearly every website in the entire world. But I
didn't ask you to do that. And then and then
when you delete them or you don't get back to them,
you get a series of emails. I'm still waiting for
your response. Are you really I didn't ask you to
look at it in the first place. You know, I've
put together this report you won't and you block them,
(16:39):
But but it's not blockable? Is it because they just
come back with it? They come back with another thing.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
And people not take take the hint.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Well, I think it's because you know, when you when
you have a look at these very often they the
people actually sort of don't exist. There's no phone number.
It's a big not spamming thing, but it's just going
out and it's like rotation emails aatly and it's you know,
selling on behalf of a big agency or something along
those lines, so that it's not a person. There isn't
(17:09):
somebody sat there called George going oh my goodness. Maybe
they still haven't looked at my email, but really, who
who falls for this? Some people must, I guess, you know.
Whereas if you've got you know, so we work with WordPress.
If you've got a WordPress website, you might want some
help with it. You've got a WordPress website, we actually
work with that sort of thing. Did you want to
(17:30):
have a chat?
Speaker 3 (17:31):
No?
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Oh, okay, yes, right, let's have a chat.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Makes sense, that's it, totally.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
M hm.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
And just you know what we what we've changed. We've
been doing a lot of having data and linking cold
calls to appointment to where decision makers, which I don't
I don't have a problem doing, but it doesn't really
work anywhere near as connecting with the original people. And
it comes back to the lots of the conversations have
(18:00):
about creating a relationship and if you know somebody on
LinkedIn and you're already connected with it's just brilliant.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Yeah, absolutely no, And it's you know, I think as
long as you're not lying exactly, don't people don't want fluff.
We haven't got time for all of that. And the
thing is, you know, I can see in those direct
you know, the direct messages that come in LinkedIn, Hello,
I noticed that we're connected and it's lovely, and then
it's this is what we do boom boom boom boom
boom boom boom, and then a link through for you
(18:28):
to go and have a look at it. Yeah, they
know nothing about me and they haven't taken the time
to have any look at anything. And it's and then
telling me, you know, we need to have a chat,
because no we don't. We don't need to have a
chat at all.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
If I need your services, I don't need to talk
to you.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Yeah, exactly. And yeah, the one you know you learn
more by listening and finding out isact those people have
actually done some research first of all, and found out
something good about you do, something good about your website,
something good.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Well, I'm I yes, and no, I don't know. Is
that not a little bit like when you get those
spammy emails that says, I've had to look at your
website and it's lovely, it's got some really good stuff
about it.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
But yeah, but I get those everybody probably across.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
The and I think it's probably because you know, that's
what we do, we work with with websites. But you know,
I think something can be really good. But that doesn't
mean that you don't need some help with it. Or
it can look absolutely or it can look absolutely awful,
or that it could be a real problem. It can
be really really slow. But that's right. You're not in
a space where you want help with it. That's fine.
(19:43):
I My personal approach is you have one of these
we do this, Do you need some help?
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Yeah, that would have been better approach.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
No, they're just like send it out two hundreds of
thousands of peoples the globe, but email and then just
people sort of thinking that sales is a lot harder
than it is.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
It really, sales is not difficult. It's just not difficult.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
It's it's when you do that hard sell that yeah,
that's difficult. When you're selling, you're solving a problem for
someone where you're finding a solution to something, or you're
or you're offering them something they want or need.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
That's why we don't it. That's why we don't like
sales calls. You need to build relationships with people. Everyone
needs to build a relationship. If I'm not building a
relationship with you, and I don't know you, and I've
not met you, and I've not been connected with someone
that knows me and thinks that I can use your service.
I won't use you. What's the point because people haven't
built good relationships with people? If that makes sense, I.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Just think there was you know. But even if you
don't know somebody, you know, if I go and buy something,
If I go and buy a pair of shoes from
the shop, I don't have a relationship with the with
the person selling the shoes, that's different. That's it's sort
of yes, isn't it?
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Isn't Okay, I'm talking about things within your business.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
But if it's a very expensive pair of shoes, it's
still an investment, isn't it. And so there are certain
things that you need to know about trust. You know,
if you're if you're spending a thousand pounds on a
pair of shoes, there are things that you need to
know about your ability to take those shoes back or
do various bits and pieces. There are still questions, And
I think you can still approach people when you don't
know them, but don't give them a pile of crap.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Yeap, okay?
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Interesting have you ever had have you ever been approached
by somebody to buy your services as an accountant? Where
they don't know you. Oh, interesting, because most of our
clients come from word of mauth so so do hours. However,
there are a couple hall where they have actively found
(22:04):
us on LinkedIn.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Okay, I've never had anyone come from LinkedIn. We have Okay,
maybe I'm doing something different than LinkedIn and.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
That, but but there are people who will that you
know at some point, you know, I can envisage people
coming to you where there hasn't been a relationship, even
though most about most of the work that we do
comes either other clients recommend them to us for a
work press exactly, or people recommend or somebody else has
recommended them and so they've found us somebody situation. But
(22:36):
I don't think it's essential. I don't. I don't think
it's essential.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
I mean, if you're if you're using LinkedIn, or you're
using trust Pilot or something. People might come directly because
they see positive reviews or something somebody else has said,
and they're the kind of person who's like, well, I
need to find somebody who's good. I've heard loads of
I've read loads of reviews that these people are good.
I'll give them a creed.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Yeah, tell you where the difference might be as it happens.
So the people that have found us are people that
I wouldn't and I'm not going to give any names
out here, but they're people who you wouldn't necessarily expect
to be moving and networking in business circles. So they
are people who are working in like niched areas of
(23:24):
finance and that sort of thing. They're not out they
may be working internationally, so they're not in our local
they're not in our y bars, they're not in our
local groups, so they don't know people to recommend. There
isn't anybody that they know that can say, do you
know somebody who does? And so they've actually gone out looking.
(23:44):
So they've looked in Google, which is really what we're
looking for when we optimize to turn up on Google.
We're looking for people who don't know us, Yeah, to
find us, aren't we Yeah we are, and very often
on LinkedIn it's slightly different. But what we would like
to happen is that people who don't know us also
find us. But the sales process, I think it's just
(24:05):
about being honest. Know what you do, know what you
can do, know what your limitations are, and be honest.
About it.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
Yeah, that makes sense, right.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
There's enough offering on for me, isn't it. So now
I've got to find something that went well. Have not? Okay,
I'll tell you what has gone well for me over
the last month or so is that I have been
looking for an operations manager, somebody who can help me
keep keep all of the moving parts of me and
(24:36):
my business together, that can help me with this, and
I couldn't. I was having trouble finding somebody, actually, and
one of the reasons that it wasn't working was that
I was looking for initially a PA. So I was
out looking for a PA, a personal assistant, somebody who
(24:56):
would be doing that. This is actually really about how
import words are. And I spoke to some but actually,
you know, you're just not going to do what it
is I need you to do. And then I thought, oh,
perhaps I need a project manager because I have lots
of things going on. And it wasn't a project manager either.
(25:18):
So I spoke to a few project managers. No, I
don't know, it just was nothing wrong with them, It
just wasn't it. And then I actually started thinking about
words and roles and jobs and who does what so
much the same as for me, there's a very big
difference between a manager yep. A director. Yeah, absolutely, very
(25:41):
very different sometimes, but I think people get them very
very confused. So I went and took my own advice
and really thought about what I was looking for and
asking for, and I came up with operations manager. Okay,
that's not They're not sitting inside a deep project. They're
actually sitting between me and my team and making sure
(26:05):
that everything that I want to happen is going to
happen and is communicated properly, and that we're talking about
the right dates, times, venues, and that everything that is
needed to be correct for all of that lot to
happen happens. And that is an operations manager. And I
found it. I found somebody, but I found.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Somebody that's even better.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
And she stood up at a networking event she spoke
and what it's you. It's you, And I actually had
a meeting with that that day at that event. That's
really good. It was the weirdest, it's the weirdest thing.
So I think my message there is no exactly what
it is that you want. Really really think about the
words and who you and the role that you're looking for. Okay,
(26:50):
and also just sort of bide your time and keep
an eye out. You know. I decided that rather than
going through all of this recruitment, i'd actually just I'm
going to meet you, whoever you are, I'm going to
meet you. And I just kept an eye out for them,
and they came and they arrived brilliant.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
It's our universe speaking.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Yes, it's just I don't know, perhaps widening your expectations
about where you find somebody. I think typically when we
say we need to recruit and get somebody in our business,
we go down this process, don't we We did where
we go, Okay, well, this is what I need, and
here's a job specification and a person specification, and this
is what that is. And these are the routes that
I'm going to go down to find that person. And
(27:32):
I'm going to and they're going to send in application forms,
whereas I finally just sort of went, okay, but you know,
they're out here.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
Yeah, they've got to be.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
They're here somewhere, and I'm going to meet them, will
be in the wine.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Bar sometimes exactly. Yeah, Sometimes you need to go through
those processes because then you're in the middle of it
and you think, no, this isn't right. Yeah, and that
then leads you to the right to the right thing,
if I might add there, I put out an advert
a few months to go on LinkedIn for appointment setters,
(28:04):
and I was in dated with people. Okay, but you
know what is an appointment setter for you? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (28:10):
Measiley looking after the diary, that.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
Sort of thing exactly. So I got these highly qualified
people who have been chief executive pas, who can manage
a diary, and what I needed people who can do
cold calling. Yeah, so I had to adjust. But I
didn't realize that because other colleagues that I work with,
that's what they call them, they can't have appointments centers. Yeah,
(28:33):
so you have to go through that process because it
wasn't until I had seventeen applications people that were fantastic.
But I was just thinking, when you make two hundred
cars a day, probably.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Not, but would they be any good? You know, I
can make appointments with anybody you like. That's just a
job chart. No, no, no, I can think of nothing worse.
Not not working for you, Jane, But that's just not
But I am really good at that sort of thing.
I can just I can make appointments, yeah, because they'll
(29:08):
be useless. Your friend all day on the phone talking
to people who don't want to join the I have
some nice chats. Yeah. So it's the words really really matter,
you know. Are you a manager? Are you a director?
Are you a project manager? Are you a general manager?
(29:28):
Because it really does matter, doesn't it? It does? Right,
So away from the happiest stuff on to what didn't work.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
So I had to do a lot of Excel spreadsheet
work in my in my job, and you know, last
week I was doing this big, massive core report and
as I was doing it, it was all these errors,
Like all the figures were in confine. It was the micros,
something connected to this, connected to that, and it was
(30:00):
driving me crazy. It was just driving me crazy that
it wasn't working. So I kept checking it, closing it,
opening it, checking it, closing. It was going on like
this for a whole day. Everything was in there, everything
it needed to be in there, but it just kept
coming up with these errors. And I passed it over. Well,
(30:20):
actually you might have gone well passed it over and
I said, could you find those errors? Ding ding D
done by the administrator.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Hang on a minute, doesn't sound like something that.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Has gone wrong doesn't know that. In my eyes, I
was pulling my hair out and somebody else. It just
goes to show you need to delegate. Yeah, I'm an
accountant and I need to do it myself. I put
all the figures in, but the micros were not working
in the background. Because it's background. It's like given to
you by the authorities to fill in, and it just
(30:51):
was I was pulling my hair out, so I passed
it over. And sometimes it needs those fresh it dies.
I think often it needs fresh eyes. And it just
goes to show that delegation is so key. You can't
do everything on your own. And that's what I was thinking. No, no, no,
I'll get it out there. I'll get I'll get it done,
(31:11):
blah blah. All the information was there, it was just
some micros were not sinking properly.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
I think sometimes also one of the problems with people
who have our types of brain is that you disappeared
down into the rabbit hole of problem solving, yes, and
you don't realize you're in the rabbit hole until like
three days of past.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
I could have been for another week, do this.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Three days have gone past, and you're still looking at
the spreadshe pressing buttons, I really doing back up saving
them as something else. So now you've got three hundred
copies of the spreadsheep.
Speaker 3 (31:50):
I was going great by the hour, seriously, and you
know that was what was really going wrong. It's like,
you know, find someone to help you sold that problem.
You can't do it.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
So what would in your own So when if you
have gone I don't have a tactic for this, to
be honest. So if you have gone down the rabbit hole,
it's about recognizing that actually you're not solving anything. No,
you should be passing this over. But it's really difficult
to stop churning.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
You know, it is one hundred percent is But just
like sometimes I get my husband to look at something
for me. I mean he's a company, he's company secretary
in a group company. So and he's a qualified bookkeeper.
So I said, could you just brunch your eyes over
that I'm missing something and he'll go, oh, it's because
of this, is this, And it's because I'm not seeing
(32:38):
the wood for the tree.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
And it's about having that discipline, isn't it or no,
not discipline, having a system in place that says Okay, dumpling,
you've had You've been staring at the street for eight hours. There,
let's you know, it should an alarm, you know, set
an alarm. Set How long should this take me? Three hours?
It's alarm. Okay, so set an alarm. It's three hours.
(33:02):
I've been looking at this and churning it around. I'm
stuck on a problem. Okay, It's time to either stop
or give it to somebody else.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Yeah, somebody else. So delegate it, you know, get somebody
else to help you. You're not on your own. There
must be someone that you could use.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
I think even if you stop, you know, so if
you're able to to, well put it like this. If
you're not able to, I think it's actually going to
get any better anyway, is it? But just stop, go
away from it, you know, have at least an hour away,
Go out for a walk, do something different, Listen to
some loud music, something anything to break, you know, to
break the rhythm so that you can come back and
(33:37):
look at it fresh.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
Yeah, you're right. Sometimes you're in your own worst enemy.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
See, well, you've you decided to be an accountant. I'm just.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
What you could also do is what quite a lot
you know when you when you're scrolling and looking at
the at the different news that's going on, and suddenly
there comes up this advert saying, look at this image,
there's a cat in here somewhere, spot where the cat is?
So you could do that. This is my report. There's
something wrong. I can't quite put my finger on it.
(34:07):
And exactly so all your spreadsheets your genius.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
So that's what you need. You need exploding cats in
your spreadsheet program.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
But it wasn't the figures. The figures were perfect and stuff.
It was micros. I had to put nought This is it.
This sounds silly. It was I had to put naughts
in places that you don't put figures.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Oh yeah, yeah, I get that. Get I get that
because it will see it as infinity or it will
see it's nothing. There's no get. But it's so nice
when somebody asks you something like that. Somebody says, I've
been trying, I've been trying to work the days. Can
you ever look at it? And you go, oh, yeah, is.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
That exactly what happens?
Speaker 2 (34:53):
I love those and I'm always quite cool about it.
Could they go no, it's nothing, No, don't mention it please,
So anyway, you don't need an any in your life.
So what didn't go well for you? Jane?
Speaker 1 (35:13):
I run out of wine? Oh no, no, what didn't
go well? Very similar? Not similar to you, but but
kind of. I'm always chasing targets and I had a
great target. I missed it this month by thirty nine pounds.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Oh no.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
And the reason I missed it by thirty nine pounds
is because I was so busy with all of those
fantastic appointments. Yeah, Mike. At about five o'clock on the
thirtieth of October, my laptop decided to die. So I
transferred to my tablet out all the emails, and the
following morning at four o'clock, I fought, I wonder if
(35:54):
that person's done what they should have done, so that
adds to the target. And then I realized that the
tablet hadn't sent any of them because they were all
in the albums. So there you go.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
Oh my words.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
No, So what would you do about to stop that
happening in the future?
Speaker 1 (36:13):
Do less? Actually take another hour to review? Calm down?
But you know what it's like when you're doing your
finishing work.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
You've just got totally guess in the background saying dinner's
ready and you're like yeah, yeah, yeah, no, dinner's ready,
and it's like okay, and you sit down and then
you get chatting and then it happens.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
But do you s sorry, sorry, no, please? Do you
send the same thing in the email altogether? When you're
sending the email out, apart from changing the name and
making a little bit personal is it usually the same
information that you put in the.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
Email of it is the same, and I think you
personalize it.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
Yeah, I'm thinking of something like because we in our firm,
we use like mauchimp, and I send it out a
campaign that has an extra and going to places and stuff,
and it actually personalizes it for you. So send it. Yeah. Sorry,
that could be one of the tool that we can
talk about. But mauchim is really useful for us because
(37:12):
it can personalize. It can put the person's name, and
it's like a subscription process so they can click it
and then do what they need to do and then
you'll know that they looked to that email and they've
actually clicked on whatever you get.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
That's good. Yeah, I haven't used mailchimp for years. You've
written it down because it's time to ring.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
Is it?
Speaker 3 (37:29):
That's what I was thinking. And then you don't have
to b C see anybody or C see anybody because
it's all they're connected that they've got the email like
you personally gave it to them.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
I mean, I don't know about you, guys. I feel
a little bit overwhelmed at the moment by all of
the different tool systems. I know, we're going to talk
about this in a minute. Yeah, every second, And at
the moment it's been fantastic. But a lot of the
people I've talked to, well, we do AI, we do this,
we do this. I must have had about fifteen conversations
in the last week with people who do AI. What
(38:02):
do I struggle with is how's that different from the
other person and how does that fit in and what
can that do for business?
Speaker 3 (38:09):
Yeah, and I met some.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Really interesting ladies who it might be interesting to have
them on the show one time. Who two ladies who
come from the financial background, financial services, And what they've
done is they've created something with AI. But it's a
tool to actually help businesses to maximize the use. So
if you're using let's say chat GBT, do you understand
(38:37):
how to use it? So that you can get So
it's about them sitting down saying what do you want
out of it? What do you need for your business?
And then they will then tell you and help you
to understand how to get the maximum.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
I think, I think what you've just said there is
the key. You know, there are so many tools and
AI has just brought it just I don't know, just
magnified that by squillions and billions, and there are so
many wraps for things like chat GPT as well. I've
actually found that chat GPT can just do most of
it's sort of out of the box actually, but for
(39:14):
me because I also have there's so much stuff. You know,
there's so many news letter tools. I know so much
about newsletter tools, CRMs, all of that sort of thing,
that my starting point is always what do I actually
want to achieve? But also take it back another level.
So say I say something to say my initial thing
(39:34):
is I want to send newsletters to, you know, one
hundred people for insance, I want to send news that.
I want to send emails to one hundred people. Okay, lovely,
what okay? But why for what purpose? Well? Why do
I want to send emails to people?
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (39:49):
So that I can tell them about my X Y
and Z. Okay, why do I want to tell them
about my X Y and Z so that I can
increase my customer base for And then actually starts to go, okay,
what are other ways that I can actually do that?
And I think a lot of people we get this
when people come to us for websites, they want a
website to do this. Sometimes I don't need a website
at all because they want to deliver a membership, you know,
(40:11):
they want to deliver lessons to people. Well, actually you
can do that with a newsletter system. You don't need
to spend, however, much on a membership website. So what
do you actually want to achieve? And it could be
that you can achieve what you want to do with
the newsletters by ringing a few people. Could be that
you can't. But so many different tools do different things.
(40:31):
What do you want to achieve? What's what's the outcome?
Not the output? The output from me is I've sent
one hundred newsletters. The outcome is that I have three
clients new I have three new clients. Is there another
way of doing that? So we can just get tool?
I'm quite techy, I enjoyed. I enjoy learning new things,
(40:54):
and we can get quite sort of. I can go
in new tools. I could be in their weeks looking
at new tools.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
It is fascinating. I'm not an expert to any of
these things, but just a small story. I have a
new client for something else that I do. I was
telling Sean, who's in Berlin, okay, and I lived in
Germany for a long time, so I speak fluent German,
and I'm really looking forward to working with them because
(41:22):
it means I can speak German, which you don't often do.
So when it came to write them the proposal, I
wrote it all in German and then I thought I'll
hang on a minute here because usually I would use
a person to correct, and I used to send it
to a correction service just to make sure it was perfect.
(41:42):
Who can I send this to? And then I thought, oh,
we'll try chat GBT. Stuck it in, came out perfectly.
In fact, the person speaking to me, who's known me
for a while said, your German's got really good, Jane.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
Ye.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Last time I went on to chat GBT, it started
speaking to me in Germany.
Speaker 2 (42:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
Now it only speaks to me in German.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
That's fascinating.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
It's someps to mean Welsh, Welsh.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
I keep telling it.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
I'm not Welsh, but yeah, so easy, Yeah, I think
the key message what was it that didn't work for you?
Speaker 1 (42:24):
Remember what didn't work for me? Oh?
Speaker 2 (42:26):
That was it? You didn't presend, Yes, you didn't prestend.
And then I don't know, I went off down talking
about goodness knows what? Okay, what didn't work? Do you know?
There's actually been quite a lot that hasn't worked. I
went away to Portugal for a few days. It was
supposed to be a break, and I'm not sure that
(42:47):
it was. So I didn't have a proper break because
I was dipping in and doing work and thinking I
should be working whatever. So I've sort of spent the
last three weeks struggling to to work really because I
did take a proper break, because I couldn't let myself stop,
and so I've been stop, start, stop starting. Really sort
of quite tired over the last few weeks. So I
(43:10):
haven't really been going out a lot either. And if
you're not careful, if somebody like me, you can sort
of like almost go inside. I call it indoor cat
and outdoor cat and I've been very sort of indoor
cat and I need to get out and be out
there and sort of get energized, and so I've been
(43:31):
struggling with that a bit. Now I've got you know,
I've got lots of stuff that I want to get done,
and i've been doing not emergency stuff because I don't
really have that, but just sort of not doing the
stuff that I want to do to move things forward,
you know, with the radio show and that sort of thing.
I've been doing. Okay, I've got courses that I have
to get published, I've got this I have to do,
I've got events I have to run. Let's just get
that going. And the other stuff, the aspirational stuff, what
(43:54):
I you know, where I want to go in the future,
has just been a bit. Oh. So I just haven't
taken proper break and I've been tired. So sorry, it's
not for sympathy. So you need to get out, Yeah,
I actually, yeah, I do. It's it's just the way
that I react, and sometimes you don't notice that it's happening,
(44:16):
and that can be the problem. So you haven't had
enough of a break, You're feeling a bit tired, and
so you sort of you. I also broke the foot,
so I've been a bit sort of hobbling around a
bit so but not getting out as much as I should,
you know. And then like you can't get your jeans on.
It's like, oh, I've got some tracks himself, and now
(44:39):
I've got I haven't put on any way as such.
It's just that I've been wearing really baggy clothes, so
everything feels really tight and horrible. So but that's it.
I haven't a lesson. Take a proper break. Yeah, and
you need to take a proper break normally when I'm
going away and I know I'm going away, I'm not
going to mention your holiday again that you didn't have.
Speaker 3 (45:00):
No, I'm just saying, if it's really a holiday, don't
take your don't take your laptop with you. I don't
take your laptop with you. Take take okay, take a
what do you call those tablets with you or your
phone just to check in. Yeah, but you see, if
i'm after.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
That's so different for me. If I check in and
something's happened that I need to deal with, it will
take me five times longer to do it on my iPad.
Speaker 3 (45:30):
Then it would an automated service saying I am away
for a week. If it is very very urgent, then yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
But even if it is very very urgent and they
come through with very very urgent, it's going to take
me five times longer to sort out the very very urgent.
I may not even be able to solve it on
the iPad. Yeah. I think it's about mind and not
about activity. Does that make sense. I think it's about
(46:00):
delegat No, No, not even that, because I do have
people to delegate to. I think it's about mine. So
if there is an emergency, if you really do need
to do something, you go, I'm sorting this out. Okay,
this is what I'm going to do. I didn't have
any emergencies, by the way. This is what I'm going
to do. And it's going to take me fifteen minutes,
yeah to do that, and I'm done.
Speaker 3 (46:19):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
My not taking time off is I really should be
doing that. I didn't do that before I left it,
and it doesn't matter. It wouldn't have happened if I
was there anyway, or I should have done that. I
haven't done that all. You know, it would be really
good if I got down and wrote that and did
this and did that, And it's about it's actually a
mindset of not switching off. Yeah, you know, tuning in
for half an hour a day wouldn't be a problem.
It's twenty four hours if I haven't done, and no
(46:42):
I should be doing.
Speaker 3 (46:43):
Yeah, no, I get that.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
So that's mindset anyway, lesson learned back again, right, what
is everybody reading? So you could be reading, you could
be listening to, you could be watching, doesn't really matter.
It could be fiction, it could be for business, be
for pleasure. What you're reading at the moment.
Speaker 3 (47:02):
I'm part of the book club. So I'm reading a
book called Crackle, and it's really interesting because it's for
the season, and this season, obviously October is autumn. At
the end of the month, there is you know, kids
like it, don't they the Halloween things and stuff like that.
So it's about these two relationship, these two women. This
(47:25):
woman's just moved into an area and she's met this lady,
and this lady has this big mansion house. She's become
very friendly with her, and she's actually a witch fantasy.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
Is this a fun witch or is this a burning
at the steak book?
Speaker 3 (47:42):
No, this is a really good This is a really
really good book and Crackle it's called and for the
life of me, can I remember the author's name. No,
I'm sorry, you just have to look at it. I'm
listening to it on audio and it's so funny. It's
funny comedian kind of references in there. There's also, you know,
(48:05):
there is some like jumpy scenes and stuff like that,
but it is so cool. I'm really enjoying it as
one of those books you really want to listen to
because it's funny, brings in a child out of you,
and people forget about that in business, about bringing their
in a child out of them. And if you can
read something that's lighthearted, fun and something like that, why
(48:26):
not then having serious books all the time or serious
podcasts find yourself absolutely people forget about themselves in business.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
Yeah, no, you're You're absolutely right. And I think reading
a story book is as important, if not more important,
than actually reading business books. Dane. What you indulging at
the moment.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
I'm not reading business books though, but I'm not. I
need to do more of that. I started reading a
thriller very recently. Can't remember what it is because I
stopped reading it and the whole story has gone out
of my head. So I need to start all over again,
since you know, you get completely waylaid by social media,
by the tablet, by looking at the news. But what
(49:08):
am I doing? My mother passed away two and a
half three years ago now, and she left me a
whole collection of her political books. She was interested in politics,
and They've been sitting there on the shelf and I've
not been reading them. I mean across all different parties.
So I've started reading that Margaret Thatcher, she's got that
(49:31):
whole truptrialology of Margaret Thatcher books. But she's got EO power,
she's got one of the Labor Party guys who used
to be a postman. She's got Barack Obama. So I've
started reading these, reading these books. And I started with
Margaret Thatcher because I found I found I always found
(49:53):
her fascinating. But yeah, so that's what I've been starting
to do. It's start reading. It's dipping and yeah that's good.
Speaker 2 (50:03):
What's an interesting topic? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (50:04):
Absolutely, while they're all there, there's probably about three hundred
of them.
Speaker 2 (50:08):
Yeah you go where that to keep you going for
a while?
Speaker 3 (50:10):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (50:11):
Unfortunately, because my iPad and my phone are all engaged
in videoing. At the moment, I can't look up. I
can't look this up. I can pop it into the
notes later, though. So I'm reading a book at the moment.
I'm listening to it on Audible, and it's a nonfiction book,
but it's actually about writing fiction stories. So it's quite interesting.
(50:32):
It's how stories are woven together and why our brains
were sort of hook into this, the biology, if you like,
behind our brain's hooking into a story. And you know,
it's one of the things that I'm very often saying
to people when they are exhibiting, is you know, share
your story now, all right, This is a slightly different technique,
(50:54):
you know, this is this is about writing books that
people hook into. So it's about writing fiction books and
stories whereas you know, but in many respects that the
core principle is the same that people are interested in stories,
they want to hear your story. Don't come and tell
people what you do. Don't worry about having hundreds of
Leeflet's designed and printed. Just actually share your story as
(51:15):
your starting point. And I was also as I was
listening to this, thinking about it in the context of
actually setting goals and maybe writing a story for moving forwards.
I'm finding a way that I can actually do this,
because sometimes people have trouble setting goals and planning forwards.
(51:37):
But I thought maybe I could tell the story of
my life, not backwards, but where it's going actually as
a story that's unfolding, and the different chapters and what's
coming up and what I want to come up. There's
a little bit of actually, this is what's happening right now.
So right now I'm looking at how the radio show
and the radio station and all that sort of thing
can change. Well, okay, I could write a story about
(51:58):
that and where is it going? Instead of having just
a goal, let's do it as a bit more of
a narrative.
Speaker 1 (52:03):
But what you're doing there is you're involving everybody else,
and also that that motivates you. But also you've opened
your mouth and said this is where we're going. It's
just it keeps you on just.
Speaker 2 (52:15):
A different it's just a different to me. I'm not
sure it is a different approach to everybody else generally,
but for me, it's a different approach. And here's a
goal of I don't know, you're going to do this
and have this many listeners this many exhibitors and this
much income or whatever with actually telling a story about
my journey, my business journey and where my business is going.
(52:35):
So I can't remember the name of the book, but
that's it. If you go and look on audible you
probably find it.
Speaker 1 (52:40):
It's read that helps, it's.
Speaker 2 (52:47):
Red and it's got a white head on it ahead
something about stories. So there you go right then onwards
to tall. So what are you using at the moment,
what are you recommending?
Speaker 3 (53:03):
Well, it's interesting you should say about AI. I've got
a friend who's actually she's she's actually does sales marketing
and she's actually selling her own sort of branding on
AI in regards to AI of yourself, So videos about yourself.
So actually you're you become your A, Your AI becomes you,
(53:27):
and it does you like you are and moves like you,
and it takes you know, it's you know, So if
you're doing like social Instagram and stuff like that, how
do you know they're not all some of them are
not AI. They're probably AI lead. But that's what she does.
(53:49):
She does AI approach. It's like your avatar, but but
on you, it's actually you.
Speaker 2 (53:56):
I quite like that idea. I don't like fighting out
the exactly well, I think you need to have you
need to have those ideas to start with. You know.
One of the things I found about using AI is
you know, yeah, all right, you may be able to
get it to write a book, but it's not going
to be a good book. It has to be you
have to be in there going no not that this
exactly and that. I always like to think of it
(54:19):
as I'm not doing stuff by AIM you, I'm doing
stuff with AI exactly that.
Speaker 3 (54:26):
So it's putting up ideas like as if you were blogging,
but your AI actually talks it it is you about
the AIU. And she she owns a vip stars that's
her company name, Katira name is and she's in Malta,
and she's been doing things like this with you know,
(54:47):
lots of marketing and social people around the world. In fact,
she's been in Forbes, she's been in magazines like Vogue
and stuff like that, and based on her products, and
I just thought it was really interesting thing. I was like,
how can I make that work for me? And so yeah,
and the sign up wasn't really that expensive to be
(55:08):
I think it was like ninety nine dollars for the year.
I mean, what's that when you got all this sort
of material.
Speaker 2 (55:15):
I might have to go and have I might have
to go and have a look at that because I
don't like although we're videoing else today, I don't like
seeing myself on camera and film. I just don't. So
that's my challenge.
Speaker 3 (55:27):
But that, Yeah, so you could be standing on a
plane or getting on a plane, you could be doing anything.
You could be walking in Paris and talking and not
actually physically do you say, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (55:39):
Honesty just yeah, in the wine bar, in.
Speaker 3 (55:43):
The wine bar. Yeah, let's sit in the wine bar
with a glass and you can't make it.
Speaker 2 (55:49):
But I think to some extent that sort of thing
you're talking about, honesty is only dishonest when you're using
it for the wrong purpose. So if you're standing in
front of a great big car, or you're getting on
a plane and you're going, hey, I sold this, I
did that, I made this, I bought this investment program,
and this is what I've got. Whereas if you're doing
(56:10):
it as a not necessarily tongue in cheek, but if
you're doing it as information and this is what I thought,
you're and you're being honest about it and maybe making
a bit of a joke about it or saying, you know,
you know, I'm love to be I'm walking around Paris,
Isn't it lovely? I'd love to be doing that. As
long as you're not using it for dishonest purposes, I
(56:31):
don't think it really matters. No, it's sort of okay, yeah.
Speaker 3 (56:35):
Because it's marketing tool. You just use it as a
marketing tool. You haven't got time, so let your AI
you do it for you, so you can go off
and do your other.
Speaker 2 (56:43):
But you also have to think about why would you
I can know why I would choose to be walking
around Paris, and I would bring that into what I
was doing exactly. But I have to have been to
Paris to know that. There has to be a sentiment
behind what I'm doing. There has to be a story
behind what I'm doing.
Speaker 3 (56:58):
I'm thinking along the lines of if you're all consultant,
you know, you could be talking about places romantic and
stuff like that, and if you're getting on a plane,
it could be in aviation and you're talking about stuff
with aviation. So the clients that she works with a
kind of those kind.
Speaker 2 (57:14):
Of you can use it authentically because you may want
to say something atually quite quickly. Something might have opened
in Paris, there might be something that's happening that you
want to talk about, but you're not in a position
to get on a plane and go there. Now, I
think there are all sorts of authentic ways that you
can use it exactly. So that's vip stars. What about you.
Speaker 1 (57:36):
I can always send a link well, I apart from
chatting to chat DBT that I've called Einstein.
Speaker 2 (57:45):
Yours is called Einstein, Mine's called Fenn, Mine's called SAM.
I have. Mine's pretentious for.
Speaker 1 (57:54):
A long time to have CRM because I've got business
card coming out of my ears and stuff. But also
I've had lots of demonstrations from different AI can do this,
it can do this, and my problem is that I
don't kind of visualize exactly how that can work. But
for example, in sales software, AI software that can make
(58:22):
cold calling and leads for me that doesn't kind of
ring true. And I but I now have a piece
of software called go Engauge, which is a CRM system.
It is, it does, it can do newsletters. I'd like
to talk to you. Shan't because with your expertise, maybe
you can give me a steer about how good it
is and go on, and it's going to create the
(58:46):
other day I said, I need to start a community
because going back to what we were talking about having
the communities keeping keeping customers focused, keeping helping customers to
interact with others to use their different services, and this
system does it as well. So next week I'm having
(59:07):
a complete demonstration on how that could possibly work for
me in my business.
Speaker 2 (59:12):
Wow, and that's go engage. I am. So my tools are.
It's still at the moment and has been for a while,
something called craft Craft, which is with the c Now,
if you think this is probably the best I can
(59:35):
describe it as is it's like Notion, where it's pages
within pages and you can I don't know, organize things
by toggles and that sort of thing. So if you
think Notion, okay, but it doesn't have quite as many
(59:56):
moving parts as Notion. I spent weeks in Notion programming databases. Weeks.
It went on and on and on. I mean, they
were wonderful. They will work, they will linked together. They
were stupendous. The thing is, nobody could work them apart
from me. I had a lovely time. I've got nothing
done for months. So Craft is a little bit like that,
(01:00:19):
but it's a lot simpler. And one of the things
I learned with it with my brain is to have
everything in one place, is to not have three hundred
and fifty contexts, three thousand labels, different colors, moving parts,
you know, sort of gears, levers, and goodness knows what
(01:00:41):
else is going on. So I've sort of at the
moment put my management all in one place on one
document in Craft, and I found that the way that
it's organized actually enables me to do that, and that
I can also share those documents with other people in
my team, and that you can edit in real time
as well. Okay, so it's actually a really nice little tool.
Speaker 1 (01:01:09):
Like Trello.
Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
No no, So Trello works based on cards, which is
really really handy depending on what you want to do.
But it is very card So it's based If you
think cards, it's little bits that you can move around
from one place to another. It's not. It's not so
if you think a card could represent, it could be
(01:01:36):
an entire project, or it could be a task in
a project, and so it can be very sort of
a lot of these things can be very multi layered,
and you can sort them out by documents, projects, tasks, subtasks,
sub subtasks, contexts, and there are lots of different ways
and lots of different depths that you can take these
things too. And sometimes that's actually the problem is if
(01:01:59):
you're not careful, you can just seriously overcomplicate everything. And
what I've done is strip the whole thing right back
to say is strip the whole thing right back to say, Okay,
there's one place where you go to and everything is
in there. So very very quickly we are going to
(01:02:19):
do very like one lineup word for the month, advice
for the month ahead, very quickly, what's your advice for
the month ahead.
Speaker 3 (01:02:27):
And delegate if you get stuck.
Speaker 2 (01:02:29):
Okay, your advice for the month ahead, where's the button?
My advice for the month ahead is see much. If
you're organizing yourself, keep it in one space, don't have
too many moving bits and pieces and try it out
and see how that works. So I'm Sean Murphy. This
has been the Women in Business radio show, a co
(01:02:50):
host Adelle and Jane Martin. We will see you. We
will be back at all some point in the future.
I think it's a couple of weeks, isn't it. We'll
be back and we'll have another episode of the Women
in Business radio show. I have fun out there for now.
Bye bye bye
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