http://uqr.me/2013/03/great-uses-qr-codes/?goback=.gde_62503_member_220449381

Share

http://hbr.org/2013/01/how-people-really-use-mobile/ar/1?goback=.gde_62503_member_214076164

Share

Rachel Alexander has been described as the Marketing Doyenne of advertising in the South Island. Before starting business Alexanders Advertising fifteen years ago, she represented New Zealand three times at World Hang Gliding Champs, was national Womens Champ for six years running, and was 13th at the Womens World Championships in Austria.

Rachel took time out after her success to understand what the “thinking” was that helped her achieve international acclaim, and how the same lessons have helped her to be successful in business.

1. Fortune favours the bold

"Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though chequered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat." Theodore Roosevelt

I first learned this lesson at age 10 when camping at Lake Wanaka.  I’d outgrown our old fashioned fizz boat and was desperate to have a waterski.  Floating on my lilo, I plucked up the courage to ask boat next door for a waterski in return for pocket money. Couldn’t believe it when the kind man said yes, & didn’t even take the my pocket money! When I was 19, I saw an ad for a National Bank loan “for just about anything”. With such a daring headline, I couldn’t resist.  I dared ask if they would loan me the money for my first hang glider, and they did! At 28, I knew that to be successful, I’d have to set up on my own but I didn’t know what to do, except what I was trained in – marketing consulting.  So I committed to leaving my paid job.

Here I am at around ten years old, waterskiing now, and outside my first office 15 years ago.  I started the business in the corner of my then shared flat, using the dining room table for meetings. Clients had to perch on the corner of my bed to look at things on the screen!  I borrowed a laptop and desk from a boyfriend as the bank wouldn’t lend me the money and I only had about $2,000 saved.  Six months later, I was in the above offices and had paid back the laptop and desk with interest.  Six years later, the business was turning over seven figures.

• Be bold.  I’ve never regretted the biggest risks I’ve taken.  They’re the ones that have given me the richest rewards, not just in monetary terms.

2. Turn your dreams into goals

In hang gliding, when I said what my goals were, there were “nay slayers” who said “no, that’s too high, too hard, try something less…” I held firm to the premise that surely my goals weren’t impossible, and even if I didn’t know if I would achieve them, I would certainly give it a good go. Eight years later, I did achieve my goals and some of them (such as being fully sponsored) twice.

Ended up living in a small village Laragne in Provence, a mecca for European pilots

I set out to test the hypothesis – was success determined by fate, or self-determined?  Were people who were at the top “naturals” or could you get there by sheer hard work?

Surely it wasn’t impossible that I could be World Champ?  Having worked in marketing for two years after getting a BCom, I went travelling, starting by training as a test pilot at the World Champs in Brazil and competing at the Womens Worlds in Japan.  After coming 13th at the Women’s World Hang Gliding Champs, I thought – it’s not far to be first!  I took a leap of faith. I had no money, no mortgage, no kids, no job.  I recognised it was a once in a lifetime opportunity.  I decided to take two years off “working”, and dedicated myself to getting as good as I could, competing almost full time for five summers in a row with a bit of shoulder season work to keep me going.  It was hard going, sometimes not knowing where my next meal or abode was going to be, and sometimes not faring as well as I’d have liked.  I missed having a routine, a boyfriend, family, a home, and the security of a regular income.  But I believe you can achieve anything, if you’re willing to sacrifice enough.  And that sacrifice was the price I had to pay.

A goal poster is a fun way to visualise your dreams.So I took first step - I hitched to France with French team.

In business, I was in a safe job for a big firm (KPMG) and scared stiff of making the break. So I set a time goal about 8 months into the future that gave me time to pluck up the courage.  “I’ll be out on my own in business by January 31st.” I was there by February 13th, but had to read “Feel the fear and do it anyway” by Susan Jeffers to overcome my fears and make it happen. My goal was to make enough money to start my dream knitwear company, as I’d done some research for a company that didn’t want to pursue that niche.  I would do it myself!  (My fledgling consultancy quickly turned into a successful ad agency, and after a big profit year, I did set up my knitwear firm, though it proved to be an industry that I decided wasn’t worth pursuing).

• Take ownership of making your dream happen. Most people are afraid to step outside their comfort boundaries or to truly commit to a course of action. Break your course down into smaller goals and launch!
• Ignore nay-slayers.

Goal setting helps us:

• Be clear what we want our lives to look like.
• Decide between two conflicting goals.
• Turn pipe dreams into real possibilities with first steps mapped out.
• Seek the assistance of “karma”.
• Tell us how far we have gone and how far we have to goal.
• Control our destiny.
• Design your life – document your goals.
• “Where the mind goes, energy flows” – Tony Robbins.
• I keep a Word document with my goals laid out in sectors such as health, family, recreational, financial, career, spiritual (and keep the achieved goals at the back, to cheer me when they seem slow to come)
• I also sometimes create a “goal poster” from magazine clippings, that I keep on the inside of my wardrobe door.  It’s a great way to visualise how you want your life to become.

3. Homework – get good at basics

In hang gliding competitions, research is essential.  Research the rules (it’s horrid when you find you’ve lost because you didn’t know a specific rule), the route (avoid places where there’s nowhere to land) and calculate final glide. Plan strategic resting points.

Choosing the right time to take off is essential, else you plummet to the ground and can’t complete your course (it’s a bit like a sailing regatta, with “turn points” and a final destination.  You need to find updrafts or thermals to be able to stay aloft for several hours to fly around the course).  So you have to know how to read clouds, look for likely sources of updrafts (e.g. rock faces which heat up faster than forests), read a map, and plot a likely path that will keep you in the air.  And because you only hurt yourself when you come in contact with the ground, you have to know how to work out which way the wind is blowing from high in the air, so you don’t crash on landing.

In business, I think some of the basics are: choosing a business model that doesn’t rely on you, otherwise you’ve just created a job for yourself; testing and measuring marketing initiatives so you know how to create a predictable stream of new customers; having a system for reinvigorating and retaining existing clients; ensuring you have staff who fit your culture and that they understand and deliver upon your service principles; that you renew your business to keep relevant products; you have an efficient production and quality check system, and a cash flow collection and monitoring system that allows you to adjust your costs and growth to ensure a healthy profit.  I’d add keeping a buffer for when the unexpected happens.  To keep at the forefront, you need to understand gaps in the market and research opportunities.

• I reckon that if you can work out what the basics are of anything, and then master them, you’re ahead of the pack.

4. Watch conditions like a hawk. Choose time to take off carefully

When the time is ripe, don’t hesitate. Don’t leave too late! Don’t fly too slowly or you’ll be overtaken. Be bold.

Timing is of the essence. If you want to expand, conquer your competitors, or launch a new venture, you need to fly soon, otherwise the opportunity may be lost.

At the World Champs in Japan, I was seeded 14th. They had this silly rule that anyone in the top ten seeds could push in and take off in front of you at any time.  Conditions were weak.  I finally thought a strong enough thermal was coming, but hesitated just a moment too long.  One of the top seeds pushed in, and I was made to wait for the other seeds ahead of me to take off. They all took off in the thermal and scored well for the day. By the time I did get to take off after them, the thermal had died and I landed out down the bottom, with my tail between my legs.  That flight was the only flight that really earned points in the event, and as a result, I came a miserable 23rd   After that I vowed never to enter any more silly womens events with silly rules like that and competed only equally with the boys.

I had the dream of having a knitwear company 15 years ago. I didn’t have the capital back then. Seven years later, after a boomer year in the ad business, I gave it a shot. But the market had moved on – the consumer expected competitive prices from China even for luxury goods.

Whilst my styling and quality was pretty much on the mark, I couldn’t get it made at a low enough buy price to get enough margin. Catch 22: you need volume to get a cheap buy price, but need a cheap buy price to get volume! No one was owed money and I sold every last garment, but in hindsight my timing for take off was too late. It was also probably too much to take on with a young baby and ad agency to run at the same time!

• When the time is ripe, don’t hesitate.
• Don’t leave too late! Don’t fly too slowly or you’ll be overtaken. Be bold.
• Timing is of the essence.

5. Concentrate on the task at hand

When competing, a fatal mistake was to think about winning and receiving the prize, when really I needed to work out where my next updraft was going to come from and how I could stay in the air.

Develop excellent concentration. Time management. Practice the art of relaxed concentration. Don’t get too complacent. If you are too “laissez-faire” you might be too slow to respond to opportunities. If you’re too wired, your productivity suffers as you run around like a chicken with your head chopped off. In sport I used breathing techniques, and in business I use regular goal setting, budgets and KPI’s to keep me tuned.

What is the most important thing you need to be doing right now? If you – like me – prioritise clients and deadlines very highly, then time for working ON the business suffers. I try and schedule an afternoon to work on initiatives that have huge long term potential to change future income streams.

• What do you need to concentrate on, right now?
• Develop excellent focus and concentration; “centering” breathing technique = not too hyped, not too laissez-faire
• Set KPI’s (key performance indicators) so you can keep yourself accountable
• Do the hardest task first
• Make time for working ON business, not just IN it

6. See setbacks as opportunities to re-focus

I’d learned to paraglide, and with years of competitive hang gliding, fancied myself as a bit of a hot shot.  One day, pre the NZ nationals in Queenstown, I had the choice of  practising emergency recovery procedures over the lake, or practising off Coronet Peak.  I chose to “fly with the boys” and was thermalling at the top of the stack with the experienced paraglider pilots.  I’d borrowed a paraglider that was too big for me and it got out of control.  “What was that emergency technique?”  I could remember only one, but it didn’t work.  “Maybe I should throw my chute? That technique should work.  Again it didn’t.  It was then too late to throw the chute.  I spiralled into the ground from 300 feet in a negative spin. My body hit the ground so hard, it bounced two feet into the air.

Onlookers were sure I would be dead, but amazingly I survived. I’d at least worn a back protection system – a life saver. I should have done my emergency practice.  My ego got in the way.  So I determined not to fly paragliders again, but concentrate instead on making my hang gliding goals.

In business early on, I discovered some invoices that I hadn’t charged onto clients that had slipped through. So realising our system wasn’t robust enough, I invested in a new accounting package.  Later I had an unexpectedly quiet month.  I hadn’t set enough aside as a buffer and it was very stressful sailing right out on the edge.  I survived, but learned to try and set aside at least two month’s expenses in a buffer fund.

At another point, I realized I was so focused on achievement and completing tasks that I hadn’t invested enough time in empowering my employees. So I put in place daily and monthly touchpoints to check on morale, so I could take steps early to address any staff issues.

• Mistakes are a way to identify shortcomings in your systems.
• Identify barriers; attack one brick at a time
• Set aside a business buffer
• Empower employees to be your wings

7. Know when to change gear

Conditions were weak in the Spanish Nationals and I could see pilots landing out all over the place. So I found a “zero” or very light bubble of air that was neither rising, nor sinking. I had my harness zip undone and my legs out ready to land at every turn.  But by turning in circles and staying in it, I was able to say a hundred feet above the ground and the wind drifted me to goal ten kilometres away. I came second that day and other pilots couldn’t believe it as they had seen me pass overhead very low with my feet out of the harness ready to land at any moment. How low can you go..?!

In business, when your industry is in a lull, you need to find strategic safe points to use and wait for conditions to improve. This can mean retrenching or subleasing extra office space to keep afloat. We were overexposed in manufacturing for a while when the dollar was high and my major clients’ spend dropped dramatically. I didn’t see it coming and had to cull a few staff and sublet some spare office space.  These days I keep a much more balanced portfolio.

However, I had a quiet month 3 years ago, which was very odd compared to the previous 12 years of trading history.  I listened to the impending recession news.  I’d had some extra office space that I’d traditionally made good money out of by subletting, but I was finding it harder to let and was paying more rent than was really justifiable for the size of my business.  My lease had run out after 8 years and was on a month by month basis.  I asked the landlord to contribute to marketing fees for the empty offices, and when he refused, I quit my lease.  I figured I had some extra space in our house which had three rooms that were not really used.  I wired up the house, and then bang – the recession really hit.  Then the earthquakes hit – a 7.1, followed by two more which shook our Christchurch CBD to the ground and killed 183.  Having the offices and staff at home was a real squeeze, but it kept our overheads lean in the recession, and although we lost three chimneys, we were able to stay in our premises – and in business – throughout the recession and quakes, and now are pumping again. It may not be the big flash ego premises of the past, but we are having one of our most profitable years.

Equally there is also a tipping point. When your gut tells you things are on the turn for the better, go hard out! That’s where we’re at this year and it’s an exciting time, bringing a future to fruition.

• Recognise changing wind conditions.
• Know when to take lower-risk diversions to maintain position.
• Be flexible in how you get to your goal.

Changing gear, and surviving! Above were our flash previous premises, and below is our house where we moved the offices to. It’s on a busy road and the signage has been good for profile (many businesses are now operating out of homes after the earthquakes).  A bonus is having a nice garden for outdoor meetings!

8. Get high before you enter tiger country

Tiger country means terrain that is so hostile, there is nowhere to land safely.

One day at the French Nationals, we had an 80km task and there was a 15km stretch of huge mountains with no roads or paddocks for safe landing.

I was shit scared but went anyway. Got across fine, but not so lucky coming back. No thermal on the last face and nowhere to land safely. Crash landed and smashed up a hang glider pretty badly, escaping luckily with a nasty gash on my face. “Oooo la la la,” the Frenchman said. “What a priiiitty face, ruined!” A long hard walk out with a heavy hang glider on my shoulder…Should I have gone? Perhaps I should have waited for another pilot to cross with, to have a bigger team to search for thermals.

In business, put your personal assets into a trust and take some money out and invest it elsewhere like shares or property. I have met several multi-millionaires who lost everything when their (formerly) very successful businesses went down the tube and they had all their eggs in the one basket – their business. On the other hand, another one fared very well through fluctuations who had salted away money and diversified his asset base.

Another time when I had a quiet month in October, I realised I wouldn’t have the cash to pay staff wages through the long Christmas holiday period.  I knew if I didn’t take immediate action, things would go sour.  I managed to rustle up some buyers, and sold 75% of the company and raise additional capital.  The new partners were supposed to bring on all the advertising business for their 12 companies, but this didn’t come to fruition. Four months later, I ended up buying the company back (for a better price).  I trimmed some staff, returned to profit within a month, and developed a new market sector which has proven to be our lifeblood during the recession.

• Always be prepared for tigers
• Always have an emergency landing paddock, chute repacked, spare radio batteries, food and emergency landing know-how

On the right hand picture, look closely and you’ll see a tiny white dot in the middle.  That’s a hang glider in front of me.  This was the scale of the terrain we had to cross – with no safe landing in sight.  I was terrified!

9. Respect greater forces and watch them

I have been literally struck by lightning in France and no longer play roulette with thunder clouds. I was standing on take off with some Israeli pilots holding my side- and front-wires. Under persuasion with a looming thundercloud across the valley, I moved back ten paces and set the glider on the ground still clipped into my harness. Suddenly there was an almighty clap of thunder.

A pilot flying down to land looked up and saw a fork of lightening come out of the cloud, noting one fork struck the top of the hill where I was standing. Off course, my kingpost was the highest metal object. My glider was silhouetted by light as if a large spotlight was on us. The chap on my sidewire said he saw a flash of light pass down the wire which he had only just released. I had just set the A frame on the ground when I felt a huge jolt in my ankle tendons, like someone getting a really sharp pointy rock and jabbing it in the side of my heel. My hair was all standing on end but luckily I was wearing rubber soled sneakers and had just let go of the metal downtubes. Amazingly we were unharmed. Sometimes greater forces don’t let you off so lightly – superceded technology, economic factors and trends can conspire to work against you.

In business, my son had had an accident which took me away from the business for 3 months while he was in a coma and learning to walk again.  The business lost a lot of momentum and was stalling.  I had to grow at 20% for the rest of the year, in an impending recession just to survive.  I did, but was totally exhausted.  I wondered whether to set a growth target of 5%, or a decrease of 30% for the next [recessionary] year. Was it mind over matter?  I did budgets for both scenarios.  My business ended up decreasing by 30% that year, and 38% the following year, but amazingly because I had set a contingency plan in place, we got through, without making profit, but paying everyone’s wages including my own, and without losing money.  On the other side it’s been trending up again at 30% – let’s hope it stays that way!.

• Don’t underestimate the effect that external weather patterns and economic fluctuations can make. The power of the New Zealand dollar to affect tourism business, the power of legislation changes to land you with extra costs, Kiwisaver impact on staff costs…

10. Don’t break for the lead early

Wait until you are in position before you play your shots. Use your ears to gather intelligence. Timing. In long hang gliding tasks (100km), you’d often do better if you flew with a gaggle of other pilots rather than set off on your own, to increase the chance of finding thermals. Then once the majority of distance was behind you, you could take more risks. In business, you may have “me too” products but at some point in your career invent something so fantastic that it’s worth being a tall poppy about it.

• Wait until you are in position before you play your cards.
• Gather intelligence
• Fly with gaggle until majority of distance behind you
• Me too products versus your breakthrough product

11. Harness team power

I’d been eavesdropping on the British team’s radio channel at a variety of hang gliding competitions, to understand their team tactics and why they were consistently the winning team at world events.  At an event in Spain, the Solar Wings Challenge, I put my hand up to be the team leader of my hang gliding brand’s team.  The other (male) team members looked a bit surprised, but acquiesced.  The first day I asked our team, which members had specific experience in this area, to communicate on the radios in English (the only common language), and tell the team on the radio where they found the thermals and at what height.  The first day was a disaster – plenty of Spanish and no sharing of info.  Stern words were held.  The day after, everyone spoke English, and some people helped with thermal locations.  At the next morning’s briefing, I handed out candy bars to those who were “team players”.  By day three, our team was in the lead and after 8 days of flying, our team won by a clear margin.  I flew consistently but inconspicuously in the comp.  Then on the last day, I had a remarkable flight, aided by advice by the team, and was first to goal, actually clinching the title for the event personally.  I’ll never forget the moment when my team presented me with a team t-shirt, autographed by them all, “ole napolean, once a leader always a leader etc.” It was a simple experience that had a lasting impression.

In my former role as Chairman of Top 10 Holiday Parks, I needed to rally together 42 holiday park operators to act as a team.  I said: “what would you do if you were the shortest boy in your Form 1 class? Rally together 10 other short boys, get together and all shout, in the same direction, at the same time, in your loudest voice, the same message.” The power of 42 holiday parks promoting the same brand (rather than their own) and the same signage has been enormous. We achieved 66% unprompted brand awareness among holiday park users when only two years prior, research showed even people staying in one of our parks didn’t know who Top 10 was!

• Teams outperform individuals
• Set goals, lay down the rules, communicate, reward good behaviour, track gaps, empower

12. Utilise mentors

In hang gliding, I found the best operators, and hung off every word for a few years, constantly asking questions!  My thanks go to Anton, and Bernie in hang gliding.  I was mortified once when Anton “kicked me out” and refused to give me more help.  Shortly after I occasionally began to beat him in a few tasks!

I had three business mentors – one for teamwork, one for growth strategies, and one retired ad agency guru on how to structure the organisation for success (sadly he passed away).

In business, I have used a business coach who keeps me accountable to my goals and stops me getting so engrossed in day to day detail that I forget about the opportunities at hand in the big picture.

• Get alternatives when stumped
• Recognise being “kicked out” as graduation and find your own wings.
• Keep accountable

13. Persistence

I had spent hundreds of hours looking for sponsorship and one month before the World Champs in Japan, still had no money. I gave up. The next day I had $15,000 in my bank account.

Never lose faith that it’s possible. Dozens will try and dissuade you from taking risks. But you may have to sacrifice everything to get there. I had to give up my career, friends, stability, relationships, money, everything in my two-year full-time quest to get to the top of the world hang gliding rankings. Camping out in Europe, taking work to keep going, never knowing where my next meal was coming from or how I’d get to the next event – it was sometimes really tough. But I wanted it so badly that I was willing to stick at it. I had to grit my teeth and stick in there in the face of immense personal anguish, but eventually got there.

From this…..to this….took 8 years! Longer timeframe while balancing other priorities (kids)

In business, I hit a downer when I had my second baby on the same day I took possession of a new house, had to project manage major renovations, sell my other house and keep it tidy for open days, hold down two mortgages while going backwards, shift house and unpack with a young baby, get by with no hot water in the kitchen for three weeks, and handle the death of my mum, when sales at the business plummeted in October, a critical month. I knew I didn’t have enough stashed away to pay wages through Christmas (another lesson!). I also, not surprisingly, got depressed! Incredibly I managed to sell 75% of the business which injected capital through a lean period.

It didn’t work out with the new owners and I wondered if I had what it took. I held onto the thread that I’d managed to grow the business at 100% a year for three years in a row a few years earlier until a rotten egg came along, and thought I had the grain of an idea that could be the break of my career. So a few months later when I was on top of things, I bought the business back for less than I sold it and after a six month period of consolidation and reflection, we had amazing growth, just like the old days – and I had more fun than I’d had in years. I’m so glad I stuck it out.

• The mark of a champion is someone who wants the goal more badly than anyone else, willing to keep trying til they achieve it.
• Success could be just around the corner
• Sacrifice – have to be willing

14. Don’t measure yourself against others

I was really down after two years when I came 80th out of 135 at the French Nationals. I thought I’d get in the top ten. I went to London, despondent and my best friend Hillary said “Rachel, I don’t give a damn whether you come 1st or 80th. I don’t measure your self-worth on scores, but on personal qualities.” I thought of the people I admire, and realise the qualities I like in them aren’t based on scores but on personal traits. I learned that you should never base self-esteem on rankings, but on values such as honesty, integrity etc. Competition became about self-comparison not social comparison. Internal goals not external goals.

Keep things in perspective. If you get frustrated, slow down! Success involves a series of plateaus & troughs

• Like yourself based on your unique values, not performance rankings
• French Nationals 80th/135
• Success series plateaus & troughs
• Steve Gurney – Kelp
• Be kind to yourself – self help mechanism when you’re out of kilter.
• Permission to change pace in certain chapters e.g. kids

15. Control your mind

Manage Voice No 1 (“you’re great”) and Voice No 2 (“but you’ll never…”). Visualise a confident you reassuring yourself. Visualise the goal and use positive self talk to say “it’s not impossible”.

Our mind is so fickle. I read up on sports psychology and learned to control negative thoughts, questioned whether my fears were founded: were they “true, false or don’t know” outcomes? Many self-doubts were generated by insecurities which when looked at frankly, didn’t stand up to scrutiny. I rehearsed positive self-talk in the mirror each morning, willing myself to overcome mental obstacles. Landmark forum and Life Training are great programmes for managing your thought processes.

• Voice no 1 & voice no 2
• True, false, don’t know
• Insecurities often don’t stand up to scrutiny
• Rehearse positive self talk
• Drew at Womens’ Worlds
• Alexander’s accident
• You are your own worst enemy

If you think you are beaten, you are
If you think you’re outclassed, you are
If you think you dare not, you don’t
If you’d like to win, but think you can’t, it’s almost a cinch you won’t
For out in the world you’ll find,
It’s all in the state of mind
You’ve got to think high to rise
Before you can ever win the prize
Life’s battles don’t always go
To the stronger or faster man,
But sooner or later the man who wins
Is the fellow who thinks he can

– Summarised extract from full poem by Dr Denis Waitley

16. Excuses – discovered an area that needs work

Recognise procrastination as a task in waiting. One competition used line-drawn topographic maps instead of the ones with shading that illustrated easily ridgelines and recognizable features. I said to Blenkie “I won’t be able to do well because I can’t read maps like that. How will I find the turnpoints?” He told me to buck up: that I was procrastinating and it was a sure signal there was a lesson there that needed learning.

Sure enough, I quickly learned how to read line maps and scored passably in the comp.

• Recognise procrastination as a task in waiting
• Topographic maps

17. Concentrate on overall objective but be flexible on how you get there

Same goes for staff! I’ve had to learn that you can’t always expect all staff (especially Gen Y) to fit into your processes and rules. Sometimes you have to bend them to the staff.

• Not all staff fit into your processes and rules
• Staff resistance – medicine women wanting to be chief
• Recognise if you need to change model
• Advertising vs online gym

18. Trust your instincts

Have faith in your own decisions. Don’t blindly follow others. Don’t bother with Bluebeards (read “Women who run with the wolves”). Maybe it’s because I’m a chick, but if a little voice says “warning, warning,” I listen up because almost invariably it’s right. Often this is a client that turns out to be a nit-picking waste of time and profit. I always kick myself later and wish I’d had the fortitude to trust my gut and turn them down.

Also goes for doing business with friends – we did a gorgeous logo and biz card for a “friend” Tarn Mulally who disappeared off the face of the earth and never paid the bill. Didn’t have the guts to even tell me to my face her business had gone sideways.

Phew – there are always more lessons in the offing. Life never stops teaching us! I hope you’ve enjoyed these and that there is at least one that can help bring new perspective to something you’re facing now!

• Have faith in your decisions. Don’t blindly follow others, and cast off Bluebeards (Women who run with the wolves)
• Vineyard
• Business – online marketing – bought back the business

19. Don’t doubt yourself

• Staff member gave many sleepless nights. Was it me? Later discovered he was a serial employment court guy (took 3 CEO’s in a row to court)
• Afraid to be the captain,
  to say “it’s my ship, these
  are the rules. If you don’t
  like it, these are the
  consequences.”
• Business sale – unslumping yourself is long and hard
• Staff and partner mismatches
  about alignment of values

20. Chase your apricots

You should learn that you can’t be loved by everyone

You may be the finest apricot in the world

Succulent, juicy, huge and tasty

Offering yourself to all

…but there will be some people who do not like apricots

You must understand that if you are the world’s finest apricot,

And someone that you like doesn’t happen to like apricots, then you have the choice of acting like a banana

…but you must be warned that if you become like a banana, there will always be people that do not like bananas

Furthermore, you could spend your entire life trying to be the best banana, which is impossible, because you are an apricot!

….or you can seek again to be the best apricot.

21. Every fruit has its season

At the end, I realised hang gliding was a banana

Horses were my apricot…polo beckoned

Working for someone else was a banana

My boyfriend at the time was a banana….

• Recognise tangents and avoid them
• Recognise distractions and procrastination
• What is right, right now?
• Give yourself time to find the new chapter
• What do you do, to excuse yourself from chasing your apricots? Life is short.
• Hypothesis test result? Yes you can get super far with just perserverance, but to get to the top, it’s got to be about the heart

I realised my heart was really in horses. Hang gliding had been a “head” experiment. I saw a game of polo and realised that was the sport for me (it took 3 years to learn to ride before they would let me loose on the polo field!).  Then I learned to jump and now enjoy hunting with my beast, King Arthur below.

22. Be present – enjoy the journey

Be grateful every day. I’m grateful my son is still alive.

Enjoy life’s simple pleasures

Landing out in Spain next to a sunflower paddock.
I landed in the paddock of these two old guys, who shared with me locally made honey and wine, in the house that their family had lived in for 3 generations.

The Christchurch quakes brought it home – what really counted in the BIG scary shakes: family & friends.  Here are my boys, having summer sprinkler fun in the garden.

So my final advice:

Be bold, chase your apricots, grab the opportunity and follow your heart. You never know when it’s your last opp!

Chicks waterskiing at Susan’s 50th, 10 days before Feb quake.

RIP, Susan Selway, Christchurch Feb Quake victim, CTV building

I still have to tweak the second half of this article!  If you’ve enjoyed it, please email me your feedback! I also present this as a one hour presentation at conferences and events.

Share

In my view, making your company Facebook page your main hub is the incorrect approach. First of all, Facebook pages are not currently indexed by Google, so if you put all your eggs in the Facebook basket, then you won’t be attracting organic traffic that is actively searching for product in your category.

Secondly, there’s no doubt Facebook has a big swing right now, but remember Bebo and MySpace…social media sites do come and go. Right now, Google Plus is having a much faster uptake than Facebook did, and I would expect in an incredibly short time, it could be on par with Facebook. This is because Google has done something really clever to keep its content salient: articles will need to be linked back to individual Google Plus profiles, and then double linked from your profile back to the article. The whole +1 phenomenon allows the audience to rate genuine contributors versus spam (though I’m sure the bulk seo agents will find a way to get around this before long). So people who have had a lot of +1′s will be considered more credible, and their articles will rank more highly than the masses, as well as getting a profile picture beside the listing to differentiate them as “quality” links.

This is a clear incentive to rank more highly, and will expediate uptake of Google Plus.

Thirdly, whilst the figures show that in New Zealand, approximately 30% of time on the internet is spent on social media sites,I would venture to say that there are far more Google searches than Facebook searches in a day. Granted Facebook is used by 95% of people who use social media sites, with You Tube at 40% and Twitter at 5%. However Google is still the king for information searching when you are trying to find information on a certain category. I believe people search on Facebook for a particular company or person, rather than generic information. Plus I read a stat recently that said on average only 10% of your friends will see your post. This is because they may not be online when you post it, and they may not scroll back through the last day or two’s activity if they are not a Facebook addict!

Still it’s said that once “in”, people do like to stay within Facebook and resist external links. And the “young” (at 44, I don’t think 20 year olds would say I’m in that category!), prefer to instant message within Facebook, Skype etc rather than email. So it is possible they might err to Facebook searches over Google.

Another reason to keep your Company Facebook page strategy separate from your web page is that there should be a different tone to your Facebook comms than your web site language. Your web site is a little more formal (letter versus email). Your Facebook site is a social site, a place for interacting and entertainment. Your languaging should be quite different – more personal and chatty.

I’ve noticed that You Tube converging on Facebook is gaining momentum – with many bigger brands having their You Tube Channel videos integrated as a tab on Facebook.  Salomon Freestyle has a smart You Tube tab.

So what do you think? Do you think your web site should be your official port of call or are you putting all your eggs in Facebook?

PS If you would like to explore getting help with with building your company website, Facebook page / advertising or search engine optimisation, please drop me a line – Rachel.

Share

1. The number of Followers on Twitter
2. The number of Fans on Facebook Fan Pages
3. The number of tweets & RTs on Twitter
4. The number of Shares & Likes on Facebook
5. The ratio between Followers-Friends
6. The authority of the people that follow you
7. The authority of the people that share your content
8. The average quality of your previously shared messages
9. The number of unique mentions/shares (similar to Link Diversity)
10. The rate and the source of links that you share

Search engines are expected to use Social Media buzz to determine:

• How fresh a particular post is
• If an page is still useful/valid/up-to-date
• What are the current trends
• Which terms are related to the particular post. They are likely to use the keywords and the hash tags that can be found in the content of the shared messages.
• The theme or the topic of expertise of each Author. Users that tend to post high quality messages about a particular topic are likely to be considered as experts. Bing already uses this feature by recommending users on Twitter.

Source: webseoanalytics.com, Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land

Share

Mobile phones essential accessory even in rural Africa. You should have seen his Italian shoes!

In the streets of Johannesburg, the thugs want only two things – cash and the latest mobile phone (although one woman was stabbed in Cape Town just for her running shoes).

Some of my savvy kiwi colleagues on the trip don’t yet have a computer at home – why do you need it when you can get the internet on your phone? I have even caught myself surfing on my iPhone rather than lugging a laptop around. Hence the iPad – surfing heaven.

The basic difference is price: a computer is still a lot pricier than a smartphone. Except the iPad – I can see why they’ve priced this in between a laptop and a smartphone. Admittedly, broadband in the rural hinterlands of Africa was unbearably slow, and unreliable (perhaps the herd of elephants we encountered had trampled a connection? They seemed to leave a path of devastation where they had meandered. Interestingly their footfalls were silent – their impending presence only detectable by the sound of breaking branches) .

Everyone, rich or poor, had a cell phone. But computers and internet were much fewer and further between. Google maps also didn’t seem to work when we found ourselves lost in the ghettos running scared.

Forgot a fancy camera but iphone caught most action including this herd of elephants that delighted us

Does that mean that mobiles will be the online domain of the poor and web will be only accessible to middle and up? Does it mean we don’t need to have .mobi sites unless we are targetting a wide economic demographic?

Clearly not when the upwardly mobile under 30 year olds have them glued to their side. Seriously surely we will have implants soon so we don’t lose them from our bodies – programmable for latest fashion and technology trends? It was interesting on the Jetstar route from Sydney which had no inflight video service how many of us were doing games or music or videos on smartphones. And how commuting on public transport becomes so much more bearable with personalised entertainment on smartphones.

Even my partner, a 50 year old technophobic farmer, splashed out for an iPod Touch to have music for tedious tractor work after seeing me ensconced with iPhone in transit. (And yes recently acquired wireless broadband on the farm too).

The only thing holding us up, (in New Zealand anyway) it seems, is the broadband network to sustain it and the readiness of the audience to give in to smart phones. Although in Africa I suspect the holdup will be manpower; a South African pharmacist we met said 9 out of 10 blacks he regularly tested for Aids tested positive. The number of orphans resulting from parents dying is a tragedy as we witnessed at a local orphanage.

“The poor people don’t listen”, commented the health project co-ordinator, who had just changed his mandate from education about Aids to teaching people how to earn a living from chickens and how to start a chicken abbatoir. What to fight for: Aids or poverty? “The Zulu boys are too promiscuous,” said the pharmacist. The culture is polygamy. The rural men go to cities to work, have girlfriends there and bring Aids back to the village.”

Aids or no Aids, they have a happy disposition that I think we could learn a lot from. I reckon some of the hip hop cool dudes on the streets we saw must spend more time doing online music videos than we do and there’s no denying that New Zealand is outdone on food and fashion in South Africa.  Not on online marketing though!

What are your thoughts? Will mobile overtake computers? Will internet access on phones make the need for serious computer power redundant?

Share

Please take a look at our search engine optimisation page to find out more about how this can drive more leads from your web site, or grab a cuppa and look at our video on why search engine optimisation should be a top priority this year.  Any questions?  Feel free to ask, or we can set up a time on Skype to talk about it.

Share

Total ad spending increased 4.5% or $92 million for 2010 to $2.137 billion from $2.045 billion last year. Whilst still less than the $2.3 billion in 2008, it’s a welcome increase none the less. Most media sectors stayed around the same compared to the year before except television and online, which both  reported big increases.

Newspapers retained their position as the number one advertising medium at $627 million but this is down from a peak of $830 million in 2005.  Personally I find it astonishing that the ad spend in newspaper is holding up, given that people only consume newspaper for 3 hours a week or 5% of total media time, compared to 21.5% of time spent on the internet. I do still subscribe to The Press (Chch local daily), though I have to admit going directly online during the day to get the latest news, and too many newspapers end up unwrapped in my recycling bin!

Australia’s figures also place online advertising third in terms of share of advertising dollars so Kiwis can’t claim to be more “online savvy” than our foes over the ditch.

The question is: are you allocating enough for online in your marketing budget?  I am still recommending that at least 20% of marketing budgets are allocated to this medium (higher for youth markets), including text, optimisation, Google Adwords, using Facebook much like you may use Adwords, direct mail (online), and it’s time for some sites to start allocating budget to have mobile phone versions of their site (a recent survey of web upload speed on thousands of web sites for Androids and iPhones showed over 11% of web sites tested had a version of the site specifically for smartphones.  It also showed Android uploads web sites much faster than iPhones – don’t I know it.  My original iPhone is terribly slow to surf with.

Certainly the sector in general is more buoyant than last year, even in spite of our recent earthquake shakes.  Heartening!  I’d be interested to hear how are you allocating budget to online? For some tips on online marketing options, have a look at Alexanders’ online marketing options.

Share