Feeling A Bit Lacking In Willpower As January Finishes?
I’ve just finished the most amazing book for aspiring successful entrepreneurs called “Willpower – Rediscovering Our Greatest Strength” by Roy. F. Baumeister & John Tierney.
Recommended by my business mentor, I started reading it in my quest to succeed in some of my personal goals for 2012 but am feeling so inspired by it I want to recommend it to you, especially if you are having procrastination issues around starting your new business, hiring a mentor or virtual assistant or not blogging often enough when you know you should be.
In fact, I don’t feel very well today – spent all week with my second head cold in one month – but reading that book means that I won’t sit and nurse that cold on the sofa until I’ve written this blog post because I’m exercising my Willpower! I’m making myself push through the desire to lie down till I finish this post.
The book covers Willpower, Self Control, Addictions and what they call the “Perfect Storm of Dieting” and really goes into the psychological reasons why we wake up every morning full of good resolutions but go to bed having battled temptation and lost, most of the time. You’ll discover why Presidents are more likely to become shaggers, just how powerful the right kind of “To Do” lists are and just why your willpower evaporates steadily during the day.
Although the book quotes lots of studies, it’s never dry and I found it to be a rattling good read as well as very illuminating!
Don’t Threaten Your Kids With Jobs In MacDonalds If They Don’t Study!
My poor daughter has just been turned down for a part-time job with MacDonalds and apart from being astounded I think they have behaved very shabbily.
Twice she turned up for an interview with MacDonalds in Shoreham and twice the Manager wasn’t there to see her. Finally she got an interview, which was conducted in the busy restaurant on the next table to where her friends were sitting. She felt it went well, she smiled a lot, had a bit of rapport with the Manager, showed she was keen, and she’d been recommended by a friend who worked there already so she was hopeful.
Later that evening, she got a text to say she hadn’t got the job and that they couldn’t give specific feedback. Why not? If there were bothering to type a text surely they could have added how she could improve her interview skills? Unless the text was automated?
The same weekend we tried to fill in an application form for the Co-Op in Shoreham, which was 12 pages long, had to be completed in BLACK PEN, completed entirely in capitals letters (you have no idea how HARD that is!). We had been told by her friend who worked there (friends everywhere, note!) that there was a vacancy but when we took the form in, it just got put on the side and was still there when I went back for some dinner, later.
I went in a couple of days later and asked the Manager when she could expect to hear, but he said, I’ve got a pile of those that I’m hoping to get to, but why don’t you submit another one if you don’t hear in a few days?
It’s TWELVE PAGES long, that’s why!
Don’t even get me started on the Boots and Tesco’s application forms – they are nearly IMPOSSIBLE to fill in, being full of 4 x multiple choice type questions that you have to choose which one you are MOST like and which one you are LEAST like. The “most like” is quite easy, although you are obviously trying to second guess what they want you to say, but the “least like” is really hard because usually all four options are what you would think they want!
I know one thing for sure, I’d NEVER get offered a job after filling in one of these forms.
Phoebe and I ploughed through the Tesco one but then her mate, who is a valued employee there, took a look and said she’ll never get an interview with those answers!
When did it get so difficult to apply for jobs? Is it designed to weed out 99% of applicants? I can’t help thinking that they are missing out on some great applicants because it’s so difficult to apply.
But How’s Business Nicola?
Really, really good thanks, even though I had to cancel a couple of mentoring calls on Thursday I felt so grim. The compulsive coughing was not nice for clients to hear, was it Maxine?!
Since I streamlined the site even more, stripping off anything that was not connected with the mentoring programme, clients have been signing up and several upgrading on the spot, even after I took off the other options. Very odd how that works, but even clients are reporting this phenomena happening to them too, on their sites. Less options offered, more interest.
I’ve been thinking again about my key phrases to target with this blog. The biggest numbers of visitors come at the moment from “entrepreneur” type key phrases and I get a lot of long tail traffic (lots of visits from just one phrase is good, but so is just one visit from lots of different phrases). I also get a lot of traffic on Richard Branson orientated phrases too, which is odd. QR Code type phrases feature heavily as do phrases around Google Places.
I’m going to get a quote for some much more detailed Search Engine Optimisation, from this company in India (see below) because while I know very clearly who my ideal client is (because I have quite a few of them) they come looking for business mentoring, internet marketing mentoring an dhow to stop swapping time for money. Somehow they found me, even though I’m not targeting “business mentor” or “internet marketing mentoring” although my other site at NicolaCairncross.com scores very highly for the latter phrase particularly. Perhaps my ideal clients found me through that site first?
I’ve also been thinking again about outsourcing some of my more repetitive tasks, like transcoding and processing / uploading video and setting up my ezine each week. Steve’s had a recommendation for a firm in India from someone we both respect, who is very successful but I’ve got to say, the English of the person I’ve been talking to out there is good, but not 100% and that’s a worry, however, the VA might be more fluent. I don’t need them to write though, I do that, so it might work out.
Inspired by Glen Allsopp’s success with his new Viperchill podcast, which was inspired in turn by Pat Flynn’s excellent Smart Passive Income Podcast, I’ve also rationalised my previously rather untidy Business Success Factory Podcast and put it through Feedburner which might help to let me know how many subscribers I get, although not necessarily the subscribers on iTunes. I’ve created a page for it on the blog, which offers people the choice to subscribe via iTunes, via email or via Feedburner and added it to the menu.
Finally, a bit of fun. If you can sing and you fancy being part of a Flashmob in London, when a guy is going to propose to his girl, check out the Flashmob Proposal – Singers wanted - http://eepurl.com/iZnzb. Don’t know what a Flashmob is? I dare you to watch this without a smile on your face! I often just watch it to make myself smile…
