Brand You - be a winner

When you go to the supermarket do you always buy the same items or do you vary your selection?  Are there brands that you trust and you never stray to another?  Ketchup, baked beans, tea, coffee you know the ones you like and you always choose them.  Or maybe shampoo or cosmetics perhaps you’ve got your favourites there too.

So how would you feel if one day your favourite brand of tea changed their packaging to a rather tatty, unclear, badly presented design?  Would you still feel the same about it?  Would you still buy it?

What about a brand of car, would you still stick with the same brand if it didn’t keep up with the times or used the most up to date technology?  Would you still stay valiantly with the same brand of clothes if they didn’t change with the times and with fashion? I don’t think you would.

Whether you’re looking for new clients, for a new job or a promotion.  You are a brand.  How you appear to others, the quality of work you deliver, your appearance, your behaviour, they all count to make up Brand You.  Back in 1997, Tom Peters wrote a lengthy and insightful article entitled ‘The Brand Called You’.  I read it long ago and having reread it now I am pleased to see that it still stands the test of time.  In fact in today’s economy it’s even more vital to follow the Tom’s principles.

Start looking for ways to set yourself above your competition.  Accept new challenges, attend trainings, read more, develop your interpersonal skills, dress the part.  Ask yourself why do you do what you do, is it useful doing what you do?  Does it serve your long term goals and aspirations.  You may have to work hard at it, but by being the best you can be, you will put yourself ahead of your competition.  And in the long term this will pay off and you will put yourself in the path of success.

A word of warning.  One thing that has changed since 1997 is social media, we can all be tracked more easily. So next time you think to put that cavalier comment on Facebook, or fire off that inflammatory tweet.  Ask yourself, does this serve brand you?

Sue Bown

Works with businesses and individuals to get better results, more efficiency, less stress AND more success. I play golf too, especially in the sun!

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Career change? Thought you were comfortable? Picture courtesy of www.tvftdo.com

A client of mine has been working on making changes to her career for a while now. During this time she has managed to alter the conditions of her current job and she has improved relationships and communication with her colleagues. She has a better work/life balance, clearly, she feels better about herself overall.

All the while we have worked I can hear that deep down she really wishes to change direction or change jobs and start something new. I have tried to push and encourage her to make the move yet each time she pushes back or is opting out of a decision.   Also, family circumstances and events have occurred that have diverted her focus. The important thing is she does what is right for her.  She has got to the point now where she is completely fed up with herself for not making a change and is prepared to do something. It’s a kind of tipping point.

In a coaching session last week, she realised that whilst her perception of her current job is she’s staying put because it’s comfortable, she’s actually really very uncomfortable.   Also, that she’s putting a huge amount of effort and energy into making it OK and trying to make it comfortable. In fact she’s putting so much effort into making it comfortable it could be easier to just go for it and find something new.  The comfort zone she believes she has is uncomfortable.

Even when we got to this point she was still talking herself out if it, her mind was rushing ahead; ‘What if this?’, ‘What if that?’ ‘What happens when I get to this stage?’ I reassured her that if she takes a step by step approach, she can deal with these challenges if they happen and this will make the transition easier.

Now I am not going to push her to move into something new until she is ready, the decision has to be hers, however the realisation has hit home.  Last week’s session was a big breakthrough.

Like the picture?  See more at www.theviewfromthedartmouthoffice.com

Sue Bown

Works with businesses and individuals to get better results, more efficiency, less stress AND more success. I play golf too, especially in the sun!

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LK Bennett website

I am loving LK Bennett’s latest advertising campaign with it’s clever strapline ‘Life is the occasion’.  How often do you keep your best clothes, best attitude, or dare I say, best behaviour for special occasions only? 

Life IS the occasion.

Sue Bown

Works with businesses and individuals to get better results, more efficiency, less stress AND more success. I play golf too, especially in the sun!

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Kathy Lawrence, no time for swanning around

As a freelance copywriter I’ve been helping businesses get their marketing words right for the last 25 years. I did that juggling thing with work and children and came through unscathed.

Then disaster struck. Just as my two major clients walked away from their businesses, my parents became ill – father with heart problems, mother with dementia. As I couldn’t manage supporting parents and building up the business again, work went on hold. Now I’m starting to make progress with the business, but life is refusing to get out of the way …

So this was Tuesday.

5.58am How did I manage that? Wake up two minutes before alarm. No noise from slumbering husband.

6.45 Pick up 20-year-old son and his girlfriend from their rented flat a couple of miles away to drive them to Ashford Hospital. Son is popping in for the day for a quick gallbladder removal.

7.30 Plans nixed already. No one allowed to stay with son, so girlfriend and I depart. So busy deciding how to play the day, we forget to say goodbye to son. Guilt plus anxiety set in for the next few hours.

8.30 Bummer. The only exercise I have ever really enjoyed has been cancelled. No Zumba now till Thursday evening. Why is Zumba the exception to the rule? Because it kids you into thinking you’re dancing, not having a cardiac workout.

To work instead. Or at least some social media marketing. There are so many ways of getting your name known, it’s hard to find the time when you’re a one-person business. So I’m focusing on Twitter, aiming to make several helpful posts about writing for marketing every day, and then one or two that add a bit of personality.

11.30 Proper paying work. Excellent! Conference call with a really great client to discuss the next issue of his newsletter. Love the clients who understand how marketing and copywriting are complementary, and actually ask for my advice on communicating with their customers. Client has already pulled two articles that were a bit too close to selling, when what he wants to do is build relationships with his customers by sharing knowledge.

12.30 Return from a quick walk to Waitrose to long phone messages from my most gloomy uncle about my father. At 89, dad is in hospital again having his pacemaker upgraded and other running repairs, and uncle is more Eeyore-like than usual.

12.31 Quick turn around my cherished vegetable plot to mull over my response. Return to find another message from another uncle. Goodness, my dad must really be sharing the pain today.

13.00 Yes he is. Dad calls to tell me his woes. Bite the bullet and offer to have him here until he’s strong enough to go home. My dad is a great person who’s helped many people over the years, and I have no problem with supporting him in return. But, he’s high maintenance nowadays, and he’ll be taking the spare room that’s supposed to be my decorative painting workroom. So less time to focus on work, and no space to paint. Yes, this is a whinge. I’ll get over it.

14.00 Worried about lack of news on the son front but enjoying working on the newsletter. When you’re writing a friendly but informative piece you can really let the words flow.

17.00 Message that son is ready to leave. Sub-text seems to be he’s climbing the walls and needs out. Can’t contact his girlfriend so head off into rush hour traffic alone, leaving dinner half-prepared.

18.00 Son is tired, thirsty, hungry and fractious. Totally out of character he starts an argument with the nurse about what he can and can’t eat when he gets out.

19.30 Call from older living-at-home son. What are we doing about dinner? Get home just as he is heading off to fish and chip shop for a large portion of cholesterol all round. Yum.

20.00 Not much achieved on the work front today. So it’s now time to start thinking about my presentation at the networking lunch tomorrow.

And about what to do with non-paying customers.

And a few more phone calls from concerned relatives about son and father.

And how to deal with stress without Zumba or alcohol (in case of emergency runs to A&E).

And so to bed.

Still on the list:

• Follow up on ongoing work projects
• Do some real marketing
• Water the garden
• Update the decorative painting blog
• Any housework – although the dishwasher’s been done
• Take decent exercise
• Find out if my friends are still in the country

• You can find out more about the Wrightwell copywriting business at www.wrightwell.com
• If you’d like tips on writing for business, try my blog at http://wrightwell.blogspot.com/ and follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/wrightwell
• For something completely different, my desperately in need of updating painting blog is at http://artforapurpose.blogspot.com/
• Oh, and you can contact me directly at kathy@wrightwell.com about writing, painting, gardening, aged parents, dementia etc etc

Sue Bown

Works with businesses and individuals to get better results, more efficiency, less stress AND more success. I play golf too, especially in the sun!

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A recent Harvard University study has shown that most people spend 46.9% of their waking hours in a state of distraction. The study found that people were thinking of anything other than what was happening around them for nearly half their time awake.  How disturbing is this?

The more I thought about this statement, the more it bothered me.  And one reason it bothered me is that I can relate to that feeling.  We live in a world of fast-moving wonderful technology.  We are used to instant gratification, we want instant answers.  Everything is now, now, now!  I attended an excellent conference today on Personal Development and Engaging Employees in the workplace.  It was fascinating stuff!  What I noticed was how at coffee and lunck break many delegates were huddled into every available corner of the conference centre hurridly speaking into their mobles.  Those who weren’t on their mobiles were looking at their Blackberrys and iPhones for emails.

So how do we address this and live our lives in the moment to enjoy and appreciate every minute.  It is of course a nirvana that many of us aspire to, yet not many of us (as the study shows) achieve.

Some tips:
1. Look around you, be aware of your surroundings, the sky, the trees, be aware of nature.
2. Breathe, then breathe again, slow deliberate breaths.  Let go of any tension.
3. Look at others around you, smile say hello, speak to people face to face.
4. Switch off your phones, look at email twice a day.
5. Sign up for the ‘Free Your Mind – Live Your Life’ free stress-busting elearning course, sign up is at the top left hand side of this page.

Sue Bown

Works with businesses and individuals to get better results, more efficiency, less stress AND more success. I play golf too, especially in the sun!

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Find calm wherever you are (picture courtesy of www.tvftdo.com)

Recently a client described her work and office as ’chaos’.  The stress she felt from this showed and was affecting many aspects of her life and work.  Our conversation got me thinking, what exactly is chaos?   Chaos, it’s a great word, very descriptive, a curious connection of letters and could be tricky to pronounce.  In reality when we notice chaos, it’s usually unpleasant, unsettling and uncomfortable.  I decided to do some research on the meaning and background of this short busy word.  I found these definitions on the web at http://www.thefreedictionary.com:

Chaos
1. A condition or place of great disorder or confusion.
2. A disorderly mass; a jumble: The desk was a chaos of papers and unopened letters.
3. The disordered state of unformed matter and infinite space supposed in some cosmogonic views to have existed before the ordered universe.
4. Mathematics A dynamical system that has a sensitive dependence on its initial conditions.
5. Obsolete An abyss; a chasm.

What is your kind of chaos?  Do you create chaos in your world?  Would you rather have something else?  I believe we can control chaos by how we react to it.  We can choose our responses to anything in our lives, it just may take some practice.  Here’s some tips to deal with everyday chaos and still get calm:

1.  Create some space to think, go for a walk, take a breather, stop and think.

2.  Assess the situation, make a list of everything causing the chaos.

3.  Lose the unimportant and focus on the important.

4.  Make a plan, add some achievable deadlines.

 So turn your chaos into calm, get in control of your thoughts and reactions.  Find your peace.

Sue Bown

Works with businesses and individuals to get better results, more efficiency, less stress AND more success. I play golf too, especially in the sun!

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Do you have dreams or ideas in business?    Maybe you’d like to start your own business.
If you already have a business you’ll know that by focus and determination you’ll get the rewards you deserve.  The Coaching Zone can help you zone into your business and turn your dreams into reality.

Our ‘Zone into Business’ package will help you to:

• Set achievable goals and targets.
• Devise effective marketing plans to build your business
• Work with employees to track performance and strategies.

‘All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them”.
Walt Disney

Contact Us

Sue Bown

Works with businesses and individuals to get better results, more efficiency, less stress AND more success. I play golf too, especially in the sun!

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With the media full of news regarding redundancies, difficult times, doom and gloom, it would be easy to get swept along in this depressing tide.  Why not take charge of your destiny?  We all have choices, we can choose to feel threatened, out of control and helpless.  Why not choose to be in control and heading the right direction for you?  If you have something that is bugging you, generally it’s much better to face up to it rather than let the bugging continue.  So ask yourself the following questions:
What can I choose to do today to improve my life?
What would I choose to do if I couldn’t fail?
What great choices have I made in my life?

Live your life the way you choose, don’t let others make the choices for you!

Sue Bown

Works with businesses and individuals to get better results, more efficiency, less stress AND more success. I play golf too, especially in the sun!

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I know what you’re thinking ‘here we go, another one of these New Year, New You articles’.  Please stick with me here!

New Year is an inspiring time, chance to start afresh, make changes and focus on new things.  It’s a time full of hope, but how long do you let that hope last?  Think back – how long did it take you to give up on last year’s resolutions?  How long before hope dwindled, old patterns returned together with the frustration of not achieving what you want to achieve.

Why set goals?
In order for us to achieve something, however small, we need a focus.  Even if it’s to tie our shoelaces or to do up a button.  You focus on getting your shoelaces tied or your button done up and you do it.  In fact you’ve probably done it so many times it’s second nature to you.   There was a time when it wasn’t second nature and you had to consciously make an effort to do it.  The same can be said of anything you want to achieve.  You just need to get started, take small steps and soon it becomes familiar and comfortable.

What type of goal setter are you?
Do you set goals or resolutions every year and give up before January is out or sooner?  Or do you purposely not set goals because you don’t want to disappoint yourself?
Both situations result in stress, frustration no focus.  Not having a focus is giving up on what’s important to you and potentially going where others decide to take you.  Would you ever get into a taxi and say ‘Take me anywhere’?  Probably not, but by not setting goals that’s exactly what you are doing.

Some tips for making 2012 your best year yet.

1. Write down 3 areas in your life that are important to you.  This could be home, work, family, money, personal development, health and fitness.
2. Decide how you could make 2012 even better in each area.  Write down an outcome or goal for each area.
3. Now get started in each area, however small, just get going.  (Top tip – if you’re doing this before Christmas, start now!  By January you’ll be ahead of the game)
4. Do something every day towards your goals.
5. Sign up for my free newsletter, packed with tips, interviews and exercises all to help you reach your 2012 goals.

Sue Bown

Works with businesses and individuals to get better results, more efficiency, less stress AND more success. I play golf too, especially in the sun!

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Dr Mariette Jansen explains how meditation can help reduce stress

A couple of weeks ago I attended a meditation workshop run by stress management consultant, Dr Mariette Jansen.  It was a very profound yet practical experience where I and I experienced very deep relaxation and calmness.  Mariette runs approximately two of these excellent workshops every month.  I would urge anyone who is experiencing stress or anxiety to attend a workshop.  They are held in Weybridge, Surrey and you will find the schedule for the upcoming events here :

I have recently interviewed Mariette and in the interview she shares some tips on what is meditation and how anyone can incorporate mediation into their life.

Have a listen, I think you’ll agree that Mariette with her beautiful Dutch accent has the most relaxing voice ever.

Mariette is an active blogger writing informative articles on managing stress, have a read of her blog

Sue Bown

Works with businesses and individuals to get better results, more efficiency, less stress AND more success. I play golf too, especially in the sun!

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