Well we didn’t know that
The IT Fairy just told us that people don’t always own the domain name they think they own!
Which means that their websites could just disappear. Pretty scary!
But, as we dusted ourselves down, she said it’s really easy to find out if you do own your domain name and generally not too tricky to fix. Phew!
So read her excellent blog and make sure you own what you think you own.
Project Make A Sack of Cash
The Why?
Julie Sawyer, Marketing Manager & Voice raiser for Essex based Farleigh Hospice cornered BWN Founder Mandie Holgate at a BWN networking event and said the following…..”here’s £50 can you come up with an inventive way to a) raise some much needed funds for our charity, b) spread the word about the hospice and how fabulous Farleigh is c) ensure you get lots of BWN business women involved so that their businesses benefit from lots of lovely free publicity and come back in 3 months time to tell us how much you raise.
The What?
June 8th 2011 at another BWN event, Mandie asked the business women audience what they thought of her ideas a) A Pamper evening, Quiz night/multi event attitude b) Skills swap to raise money and awareness of the business women’s skills and businesses or c) A BWN Business Women Naked Calendar…….they chose the naked calendar……!!!
The How?
Email goes out immediately asking for photographers, MUA’s, Hairdressers, printers, sponsors for each page of the calendar and ….er hem willing volun- teers to get naked to all donate their time, energy, services and products FOC. Instant assistance from across the entire network (a real testimony to the way those business women really give a damn about each others success and go out of their way to connect and create results for each other!) with offers for everything we needed without a single phone call—all done via a couple of emails and social media!
The When?
June 8th — Set the challenge, June 14th – announced the idea at a BWN
networking event, June 21st – Photoshoot with 26 business women, 5 MUA, 3
Hairdressers and 2 Photographers….and a rather busy Mandie Holgate running around in her silk dressing gown! 22nd June – Photographers get photos to graphics team, 30th June – Photos to Printers, 8th July – Launch Night raises over £2300, 8th September – Return to Farleigh’s Award night to tell them how much The BWN raised.
The Result?
26 business women appeared in over 10 different publications, spoke on BBC Suffolk and BBC Essex Radio, Spoke at events to over 100 business owners, gained masses levels of exposure for their businesses which led to numerous opportunities, contacts and new contracts and most importantly to date over £5000 raised for charity, Lots of Free publicity for Farleigh’s Hospice, One Very Happy Julie Sawyer and another opportunity for Mandie Holgate to show why business women are her passion and why as founder of The Business Womans Network and Business Woman’s Coach she can truly make great things happen with fabulous business women……
So……..what could The BWN do for you?
Stop sitting with your ears in the taps!
I’ve got a question for you;
(it’s business related in the weirdness way….honest!)
Ask yourself this did anyone ever say to you “Hey don’t lay with your head that end of the bath, you’ll have taps in your ears”?
Now at first thought you’re going to say this business coach has lost her marbles, but think about it;
When you were little you could play with your rubber ducky in your blue Matey bath anyway round you liked. You could lay on your front upside down pouring water from one receptacle to another for hours while mum shouted “Are you washing your hair?” and you lied “yes”!
But as you grew, you carried on playing in the bath splashing the water over the side and you just naturally found a way to sit that allowed you to get on with what you wanted to. It’s highly unlikely that you held a conscious conversation with yourself (or anyone else for that matter) discussing the merits of laying with your head the tap end, or your legs dangling over the side. You just naturally adapted.
In life we do this all the time, and it’s just as true in business.
But here’s the thing, Sometimes we’re so busy playing we don’t pay attention to the fact that in actual fact we are in real pain, things aren’t working and life is proving tough. In reality you have taps in your ears and you’re doing nothing about it. THAT’S when you have to have a conscious conversation and think;
“Is this the best way forward?”
“Is this working for me?”
“Is this moving me forward?”
“Is this getting me the results I want in my life/my business?”
The fact is the longer you put up with stuff, the quicker you get used to it, and start to ignore it and accept it as the norm. That’s when you stop making progress and getting the results you want!
Imagine you had been in the bath with the taps around your ears. Now get out of the bath stand back and look at the bath and ask yourself am I sitting in the most comfortable way?
Standing back from your business allows you to create the space to make real progress and grow your business. Don’t think because it’s a conversation it’s going to be easy though to create that space in your head and answer those four questions. That’s why mentors, coach’s, consultants…whatever you wish to call them, work.
That’s why good networking works.
That’s why good mentoring groups work.
That’s why good environments that allow you to think about your business – work!
So the next time things don’t seem to be flowing along nicely, ask yourself “Do I have taps in my ears?”
(In case you didn’t get the message – you are not alone in business (however much it can feel like that sometimes!) and that’s why the BWN is such a proven resource for business women looking to connect, learn mindset and skill sets and to feel like they know the best direction and the happiest course to take to their business success.)
Promote Yourself With Free Overlay Ads
This is a guest blog by Elene Marsden from CorazonIT
If you’ve created YouTube videos, take the extra step to add free overlay ads to your videos so that your viewers can link straight back to your website.
Its free to set up but you do need to create a Google AdWords account first.
Watch this video for full instructions.
Stop throwing those Lemons at me (In my best Michael Cain voice)
Those of you that know me life know that has been sending a fairly substantial wicker basket of lemons my way and it’s really got me thinking. Have you heard the saying about “When life throws you lemons make lemonade?” Is that really the best approach? When that happens in business, should you be reaching for the juicer?
I’ve spent far too much time in the doctor’s surgery recently and the amount of conversations I’ve overheard where to put things simply the conversations go something like this;
“How are you then Sue?”
“The cancer has spread and the leg has got to come off above the knee now”
“I’m so sorry to hear that Sue, that’s awful, so how are you and hubby coping?”
“Not really, the house will have to go, and that cruise we were planning won’t happen, but hey you mustn’t complain – worse things happen at sea right?”
Sorry, why shouldn’t we complain?
Why can’t you say “god this is crap, this is getting me down.”
Bear with me here there is a point to my ranting for all you lovely business women out there.
While I genuinely appreciate the benefits of seeing the bright side, sometimes the negatives being thrown at you outweigh the positives by a 10 ton truck load. I had a business friend who lost 3 members of her family in a short period of time, had a serious health scare, her husband lost his job and she was wondering why her business was suffering?
The fact is we have been so bamboozled by the need to be positive and the constant barrage of happy, positive messages with sunsets or moon rises plastered across social media, that we fear we will get hunted down and disowned if we so much as suggest that things are going very much awry.
Ask yourself this – if things are really THAT bad, is it a good idea to get up every day and not acknowledge how tough things have become?
Yes you need to have a positive mind set.
Yes you need to set small achievable goals.
Yes you need to accept that there are things that make your big dream goals unrealistic right now, but hang on to them and be determined that you WILL achieve them.
But ask yourself this, if your best mate told you how tough their life was, would you tell them to bottle it up and keep aiming for the stars? What would you say and do for them?
A good moan with a good friend, or a business colleague that is part of your inner mentoring group of trusted people you know are as intent on success as you, and want to help you achieve it, is a great way of airing what’s going on. And in doing so, it stops everything that is happening to you from overloading your brain and stopping you from progressing. It stops the midnight staring at the ceiling, the inability to see the solutions, and it stops you from feeling alone.
Business woman’s success relies on many things – so the next time Lemons are being thrown at you so damn fast you could make lemonade for MacDonald’s – you are perfectly in your rights to throw a few back – your success will love you for it!