Entries Tagged as 'Success Thinking'

Top 5 Business Mistakes - Pt 5

We have been covering the Top 5 Mistakes most self-employed people and business make, when trying to make moneyl

If you have missed any of these emails, you can read Business Mistakes 1-5 at the blog at http://www.TheMoneyGym.com/blog - just search using the little search box and the key words “business mistakes”. You will also find related articles suggested by the software.

What were those Top 5 Mistakes?

1. We are unclear about what we offer
2. We are unclear about who we are offering it to
3. We keep ourselves a secret
4. We imagine we are doing things when we are actually just thinking about it
5. We don’t believe we are worth it (and often undercharge!)

So our final mistake is to secretly feel that we are not worth paying for our product or service, or certainly not worth charging enough.

Actually it’s a bit more fundatmental than that…we often don’t have a clue about what we should be charging, in order to make a great living, let alone whether we feel comfortable about charging that amount.

We often just price our product or service around the lowest level that our competitors are - and we have no idea if THEY are making any money!!

I have created a report called “Fee Setting For Lone Rangers” which I was going to drop in here but it’s too long.

If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s well worth downloading, as it will help you work out what to charge.

http://www.themoneygymmvs.com/mvs

(Login, or register to create a free account here)

Then, of course, the issue is around whether you think you are worth it.

Similarly, my free report “Natural Marketing For Lone Rangers” addresses the real world sales and marketing challenges, while my “Business Success 21st Century Style” report addresses online marketing and how to do that easily and inexpensively.

Feel free to download those too from

http://www.themoneygymmvs.com/mvs - login to your account and scroll down the homepage to find them.

YOUR 3 ACTION STEPS:

1. Read the rest of the “Mistakes” this week

2. Do a quick search using the box - top right - on “business success”

3. Join The Money Gym Silver Membership or come along to our one of our excellent “Money Gym Presents…..” workshops in Central London.

THEN WE CAN HELP YOU TO:

1. Work out what you are worth and who can afford you

2. Help you reach those people

3. Deal with an issues that come up for you, when charging what you need to charge, to make a great life

Sound good?

Great!

See you there!

Nicola


bookmark Top 5 Business Mistakes - Pt 5

Top 5 Business Mistakes - Pt 4

I’m sharing with you the Top 5 Mistakes most self-employed people and businesses make, when trying to make money.

What were those Top 5 Mistakes?

1. We are unclear about what we offer

2. We are unclear about who we are offering it to

3. We keep ourselves a secret!

4. We imagine we are doing things when we are actually just thinking about it

5. We don’t believe we are worth it (and often undercharge!)

Today I’ll cover Mistake #4.

1. We imagine we are doing things when we are actually just thinking about it

This mistake is even worse than the “Entrepreneur’s Trap of Busyness” as described in Joseph Jaworski’s excellent book “Synchronicity: The Inner Path of Leadership”.

Jaworski outlined the challenge business owners and leaders have, of always having to be busy doing stuff, with the result that they never spend time just thinking about their business strategically, or spend time working “on” their business but always have to be working “in” their business.

Mistake #4 goes one step further and my realisation of it came about from personal experience. Let me tell you the story!

One day, early in my coaching career, I panicked about not having enough clients. I scheduled a call to my first ever coach, Rachel Turner of Kaizen Coaching, to discuss emergency measures I could take.

However, before the call, I heard Rachel’s voice in my head (sign of a good coach, note!) asking me, “well, Nicola, just what HAVE you done to attract clients?”

And I thought to myself, well, we discussed this, this and that, and I COULD have done this, this and that. But at the end of the day, what HAVE I actually done?

Not much at all, was the truthful answer.

It is almost as though we don’t take action because we have already convinced ourselves that it won’t work. And this moment of insight was all it required for me to think “well, I don’t want to tell her these things don’t work, because I haven’t actually tried any of them”. Is it an inbuilt cynicism, a bit like the cynicism that stopped me ever reading personal development or wealth creation books in the past?

So the coaching call was a bit redundant in the end, because it was all about me reporting in to Rachel on the actions taken since the day before (some of which were already working!) rather than me moaning on to my coach about all the things I hadn’t done, which weren’t working.

Interesting huh?

Whenever I speak to my clients and they are complaining that they haven’t got enough clients, I always ask them what they are actually doing, on a regular basis, to attract clients.

Not what they think they are doing, or what they think they could do, or what they have heard works, or does not work. But what they are actually doing day by day, week by week. (I also ask what has worked in the past, what they used to do that they are not doing now).

Not much is usually the answer, and certainly not enough of the things that work!

It’s all about comfort zones I’ve decided. We want to take the actions that we are comfortable with rather than the actions that produce results.

So what actions do the successful companies in your field take, that you are not taking?

What are the critical success factors in your industry? Which are you missing?

YOUR 3 ACTION STEPS:

1. Do a search here on the blog for other articles on “business success”

2. Download another free report here

http://www.themoneygymmvs.com/mvs

3. Join Money Gym Silver or come along to one of our “Money Gym Presents…..” workshops in Central London.

THEN WE CAN HELP YOU TO:

1. Establish what the critical success factors are, for your business

2. Work out how to get the ones you are missing or don’t think you can afford

3. Work out what works in your business and what doesn’t, and support you to do more of what works.

Sound good?

Great!

See you there!

Nicola


bookmark Top 5 Business Mistakes - Pt 4

Misconceptions: Is Disappointment Holding You Back?

sad Misconceptions: Is Disappointment Holding You Back?Forgive me if this article is a bit “me,me,me”. It grew out of my Note From Nicola” and actually outgrew it, so bear with me and see if it sparks anything off in your thoughts. If so, I would love you to make a comment below there…tell me your story.

A bit of background….there is a right old furore going on in the coaching world at the moment with an internet based reality tv show happening, called “Britian’s Next Top Coach”.

It’s turning the coaching world upside down with two main camps developing, for and against.

Those who are “against” are largely anti-competition and anti-marketing, and those who are “for”, are thinking that this is going to raise the benefits of coaching and personal development - something Joe Public is woefully ignorant of - and this can only be “a good thing”.

The “for” camp are also eyeing the winners packages, which include a lot of very nice prizes including a promotion and management deal, a potential book deal with a mainstream publisher, and much much more.

I’ve largely ignored it all until Judith emailed me a link saying that I should go for it. In her words “you’ve got the balls” and it would be great for the Money Gym.

Not to mention my Star/Creator profile. I am drawn to telly and while this is internet video, it’s nearly the same thing and may lead to telly.

But I found myself finding lots of different reasons - misconceptions - not to enter, from “oh, they will insist on us giving up the ebook rights and that will kill our marketing” to “oh, the whole coaching world will despise me for the self-promoting limelight seeker I am” and loads of other rubbish gubbins as well.

Then it struck me, I didn’t want to enter because I didn’t want to compete with other coaches, and especially not so publically!

[Read more →]


bookmark Misconceptions: Is Disappointment Holding You Back?

Top 5 Business Mistakes - Pt 1

Would you like to know the Top 5 Mistakes most self-employed people and business make, when trying to make money?

I have seen it over and over again and, believe me, in the early days, I’ve made all five mistakes myself!  And we wonder why we are not more successful!

Would you like to know what those Top 5 Mistakes are? 

1.  We are unclear about what we offer
2.  We are unclear about who we are offering it to
3.  We keep ourselves a secret
4.  We imagine we are doing things when we are actually just thinking about it
5.  We don’t believe we are worth it (and often undercharge!)

Let me elaborate a bit…..over the next five days, in the run up to our next “Money Gym Presents…..Business” workshop, I’ll be going into each mistake in a bit more detail.

And on www.MoneyGymRadio.com with our complements, you can hear what one of our speakers on Saturday’s workshop, Richard White “The Accidental Salesman” thinks about the whole topic.

1.  We are unclear about what we offer

How many of you have more than one product or service? 

More than three? 

More than five? 

More than ten?

Or worse, do you offer a “bespoke” service, where you leave it up to the customer to tell you what they want? 

Big mistake!

Already you are starting to make it impossible for someone to make a choice, and even more importantly, a buying decision. 

Malcolm Bradbury, in his book “The Tipping Point” talks about the human brain really only being able to hold and decide between seven things at once…..ideally just three to five.

Or you slip into overwhelm and indecisiveness.

So it follows that you should only offer people three choices.  You can then offer them three more, once they have clicked on the first one, but keep it really, really simple.

So, if you look at the front page of our newly relocated website you will see just three buttons.

1.  Money Gym Silver Membership

2.  Money Gym Gold Membership

3.  Money Gym Events

Now, don’t get me wrong, it takes bottle to force your potential future customers to make a choice right away. 

But it works. 

It’s called a “Customer Journey” or “Marketing Funnel” and we have been busy simplifying ours recently, ready for a new Google Adwords campaign. 

Let’s use the Money Gym as an example…..

The front end of our Marketing Funnel is a series of Free Reports, which we are distributing all over the web.

Those reports encourage people to do one of three things:

1.  Give the report away from your site as added value for your visitors

2.  Rebrand the reports with your PayDotCom ID, and give them away from your website AND earn commission.

3.  Click on a link in the Report, to buy the ebook and give Silver Membership a trial.

There are also links to our main website which are NOT rebrandable. 

So people arrive at our site via a report, and see the three choices.

Keep it simple for your potential future customers and send enough of them to your choices page, and some will choose to buy.

Now if all this sounds like common sense, and you are feeling a bit of relief in the overwhelm of how to market your product or service, you need to do one of three things…..
ACTION STEPS:

1.  Read the rest of my emails this week

2.  Join Richard White and myself tonight on the fr*ee Webinar
www.MoneyGymRadio.com

3.  Come along to our “Money Gym Presents…..Business” workshop on Saturday in Central London.
THEN WE CAN HELP YOU TO:

1.  Simplify things

2.  Give you support to do so

3.  Give you honest feedback about how diffcult you are making it for your customers or clients to make that crucial buying decision.

Sound good?

Great!

http://www.themoneygym.com/mgpresents/business3.htm

See you there!

Nicola

 

 


bookmark Top 5 Business Mistakes - Pt 1

Business Success 21st Century Style

Are You In Business & Worried This Internet Revolution Is Passing You By? Are you still PAYING for leads for your business??!!! Does your web designer have you over a barrel - charging for every change to your site - yet seem to know nothing about tapping into the power of the internet… If so, then this FREE report is for you!  Download our latest free Money Gym “Business Success - 21st Century Style” report here!

businesssuccess21century Business Success 21st Century Style


bookmark Business Success 21st Century Style

Cheer Up & Keep Trying

mark_forster Cheer Up & Keep TryingOver at the ever excellent Mark Forster’s blog I found a reference to a blog my Yaro Starak (another favourite of mine) on how to keep going when you really feel like giving up. Excellent, I thought, so here it is….

yarostarak Cheer Up & Keep Trying“Like most people, some mornings I wake up and feel less than enthusiastic about working. Sometimes, this feeling doesn’t stem from laziness or apathy, it’s a stronger power, a sense of futility and helplessness.

I know a lot of people look to my story of success as a source of inspiration and that is one of the greatest benefits I enjoy as a blogger, but - and I’m not afraid to admit it - I don’t always feel energized to pursue business and sometimes in my darkest moments, I even consider throwing in the towel.

This feeling is not so common for me now as I have lifestyle flexibility, a more stable income and a better mindset about work, but earlier on, it definitely was a problem. I want to explain how I overcome these moments (and still do the same thing now on occasion) to stay on track and how you can even have a productive day when you are not really feeling the mojo on the inside.

I expect you have felt similar feelings of despair or a lack of motivation at different stages of your business development, especially if you are yet to establish an income stream online that is sufficient for you to live off, or if you are right at the beginning and you have not seen one cent of return for the work you have put in.

Inspired or Dejected
Depending on your world view and personality style, when you hear of the success of others you may either feel inspired or dejected, and while it’s obviously more fruitful to look at other people achieving what you desire as motivation, as a fallible human, jealousy, depression and anger may be your initial responses.

Your mind is your greatest asset for success in business, but it can be just as strong a force of hindrance, sabotaging your efforts, destroying your work ethic and leaving you with no option but to return to the soul destroying job you promised yourself that you would never go back to.

How To Work When You Don’t Feel Like It

One of the characteristics I believe is at the heart of my success and the success of most entrepreneurs, is an ability to keep working in the face of failure and an ability to force yourself to be productive when you don’t feel like it.

READ MORE HERE AT YARO’s BLOG >>>


bookmark Cheer Up & Keep Trying

Wealth Coach Diaries: Nicola’s Week

This has been an AMAZING couple of weeks for lots of different reasons. It’s been so busy that, not only have I not had time to play with my new sewing machine, but, for only the second time this last year, I was unable to write the ezine!!

My twitterings kept the blog updated and my Twits also fed out to my Facebook and MySpace profile. The blog being updated by Twitter also fed out to my Hubpages and Ecademy, so all major social networking went on as normal.

The weekend before last saw the “Money Gym Presents…Property” with the ever popular property multi-squillionaire and all round good bloke, Greg Ballard, holding forth about property investment and the property market in general - dynamite stuff as ever. Judith and I updated everyone on our Rent2Own exploits and the band of merry Money Gym rent2own devotees grows and grows - David Lee, what have you started?

harlequin Wealth Coach Diaries: Nicolas Week

Later in the day, my old matie from Las Vegas and Sussex, Maria Davies, came to show us how we could buy a luxury villa in the Caribbean for just £1000, and invited us to one of her open evenings. I’ve never been very keen on overseas investing, but the combination of luxury, Caribbean, and Maria buying TWO herself (she ain’t no property fool!) has got me very very interested. It’s an income strategy after the first four years too, with demand for Caribbean holidays growing and growing all time. Maria has another fr*ee Open Evening coming up in London and you can book your place and find out more here at

http://www.caribbean5starinvestments.co.uk
Talking of Caribbean holidays, I’m hoping that our Money Gym Wealth Creation & Internet Marketers Cruise (with Mike Filsaime) in January will take us to a couple of the islands that Maria’s lot are building on, so I can have a look while I’m out there! Just £500 per person for eight nights, the return flights to Miami are £400, so it’s a dirt cheap holiday in the sun. There are six Money Gym allocated cabins left (and there are some that hold three so bring the kids even if you are a single parent - they will be well looked after in the kid’s club) so secure your cabin (and all the extra Money Gym goodies) here at http://www.TheMoneyGym.com/holidays

Then……….felt really sick with a 24 hour bug on Thursday but recovered in time for Tim Brocklehurst’s Freedom Class weekend on Saturday/Sunday/Monday. This was an intensive three day workshop where he taught us how to use the amazing Viral Spiral system to grow our lists virally. By the end of the three days, we walked out with a turnkey online business, although some of us were not sure how we did it! Brillaint “over shoulder” back up from Matt Garrett and Rob O’Callaghan

We stayed at the TOTALLY FABULOUS Hoxton Hotel in Great Eastern Road I think it was, and while it only cost about £97 per room per night, I was blown away by the rooms, the bathrooms, the funky lounge, bar and restaurant, the hot and trendy guests/locals, the live dj’s on Friday and Saturday, but the best thing by far was the staff. They were not just helpful, can-do and smiling, they positively beamed fun and job satisfaction. You just can’t bottle that - if you could, service in this country would be an amazing thing. See http://www.TheMoneyGym.tv over the coming week for some videos….very funny when I caught Marcus De Maria at 8am, who was hosting a workshop at the same venue.

.hoxtonhotel Wealth Coach Diaries: Nicolas Week

I talked to the Bar/Restaurant Manager - whose name escapes me and I don’t seem to have his card in my pile of new buddies, but who was frighteningly young and energetic (and a real whisky expert!) to find out what his recruitment policy was, only to find that he recruits for attitude and personality and then whips them into shape after. It only bloomin’ works. We had some fantastic customer service experiences there and I will be staying there as much as possible in future even if I have to get taxis about to my workshops and meetings.

UPDATE: Manager’s name was Richard Maul

The Freedom Class was amazing - what can I say? Many many thanks to Tim Brocklehurst for his patience, his organisation, laying on of three great speakers - one of whom Ange Wayne, Change Strategist, flew over from Australia especially. She was amazing, Alan Forrest Smith was on fire! Martin Avis was wonderful on how to build a great relationship with your virally fuelled list (it was great to meet him properly at last) and Diane Corriette was inspiring about podcasting.

Genius move, putting Ange on, on the first day, as we were struggling a bit and she talked in a compelling, almost hypnotic way, about success, choice and responsibility. Tragic that Steve missed that bit as he was carted off to A&E when his heart went into Atrial Fibrillation - they kept him in overnight at the Royal London, but he still managed to win the challenge on the Monday, having done so much homework beforehand.

Luckily Tim had a camera crew on hand, so Steve can catch Ange on the DVD’s. You can find out more about her at http://www.AngelChange.com - a play on her name (it’s not all about angels, phew!) and her home AND office is based in Angel Place Building too! Amazing speaker, awesome.

From Tim’s mailing for Steve (his prize) Steve has gained over 250 new signups and his blog and first email has attracted a new client already - someone who owns a Champagne business - NICE!

I’m so thrilled because I managed to come home, take one of my articles and turn it into a rebrandable free report, working through the process. From putting up my free report in three places so far, I’ve picked up 10 new double opted in subscribers today already and it’s only lunchtime. That’s amazing.

I’m also thrilled because I have created my first ever Facebook application. I was making a Blidget (widget for folks to feature the Money Gym blog on their websites) and it offered me the option to make a Facebook application out of my Blidget. Of course I clicked yes, and was walked through several stages to create my app. Now, if you don’t realise how exciting this is, just think about how viral this could go. If even half my 447 (as of today) friends feature the Money Gym app on their profiles, and half of their say….50 friends like what they see and feature it….that’s our blog on 5587 profiles….man, that’s powerful.

My brain was FRIED after all that techie, detail stuff, but I still managed to make it to my Monday Night Poker Game at the Crown & Anchor in Shoreham. On Tuesday I took it easy and fixed Head Chef, Andy Quinn’s laptop for him (well, Steve did) and set up a Facebook group for the Crown & Anchor, whose new website is taking ages!

Had coffee with one of my poker buddies, Paul Stanford from 4Momentum on Tuesday, he’s a business consultant and we talked about how to take The Money Gym to seven figures from six, and how to get him blogging and how to wrest control of his website and hosting from the current designers who want to charge him for every little thing and won’t give him access to his own CPanel.

Kids off school today (yet another Insect Day!) and off to play poker live again tonight, private game, first invite so honoured and a fixed buy in, for those of you who are worried about a wealth coach apparently gambling. My Monday nights cost me £12 and inclued dinner, for heaven’s sake. It’s cheaper than the pictures.

When this ezine is written, I’m off to check my property messages and see if the deal that fell out of bed due to a solicitor offering business and not legal advice, has come back on. The vendor turned out to be someone who used to work for me at The Acacia, as a maid! How small is this world really?

Have fun, I will be when I slow down!

Nicola


bookmark Wealth Coach Diaries: Nicolas Week

Is A Property Boom The Death Of Entrepreneurialism?

This week I posted a blog posting picked up from another site, about whether the property boom had meant the death of entrepreneurialis

Read it here >>

The author seemed to be putting forward the view that entrepreneurs had been getting lazy and flocking to the property market - they put their premise forward thusly…

“The net effect of this (property) boom has been one where the incentive to become truly entrepreneurial was significantly reduced – why try and create a new product or service if there was a guaranteed high return from property development? Similarly, from an investment point of view, why consider any other investment opportunity if there was a perceived guaranteed high return from property development?”

Interesting how they slipped that “perceived” in the second sentance eh?  Do they mean that the return being gurarnetted

Let me give you a bit of context for my fascination for this….

In 2003 I bought my hotel The Acacia.  Property investment and business in one I thought.  A big TICK x 2 on the Lanes of The Wealth Highway.

I created an E-Myth’d business, one which would run without me, whereas I could market the place from anywhere in the world. Which was based in a building that would appreciate in value.

partners_greg Is A Property Boom The Death Of Entrepreneurialism?Then I met Andy Shaw and Greg Ballard, no strangers to business or property themselves.  They started to come to a lot of our Money Gym events at The Acacia and we used to spend time in the breaks in the back garden, because some of their team smoked in those days, and we could talk to Steve (the Manager / Chef at the time) through the kitchen window while he prepared his latest sumptuious feast for the clients.

I’ll never forget the day, when one of them uttered the following immortal words ….

“Of course, this place will never make you a good enough return in terms of profit, to make up for how much effort, worry and risk you have put into this place”.

They were not being unkind, just honest, and they knew what they were talking about, because they had had a big business;  two factories, over 100 staff who got up in the morning to cause them grief, over 100 pieces of equipment and a fleet of vans that did likewise.  They realised that, in their first property deal, they had made more profit than they had made in half a year in their business.

So they sold the business and went into property.

They suggested I sell the hotel business and concentrated on the virtually virtual coaching company The Money Gym, my internet marketing activities and property investing - but focusing on simple little one bedroom flats.

I was in a hurry to get out now, becuase the scales had fallen from my eyes in terms of the best use of my time and efforts.

Then I discovered the other problem - that Andy and Greg had also experienced - nobody wanted to buy my business when I wanted to sell it.  Or perhaps I didn’t know how to go about selling a hotel business properly.

And there were other people’s jobs depending on me - you can’t just walk away from a business if there are othere people working in it - your employees.  You have a responsibility.

Grim.

Anyway, with time it all resolved itself - not easy but we got there.

Because at the end of the day, as I never tire of saying, wealth creation is a simple matter of deciding where your best return on investment is, and putting your money, time (which is money) and efforts there. If you don’t know how to work out your return on investment (ROI) here’s one of my previous articles on the subject, which tells you how to work it out, and how to compare different opportunities, and make chalk like cheese for the purpose of comparing different opportunities.

Aye, but, here’s the rub.

We all have our personalities and emotions to deal with and that can muddy the waters.

We find that our Money Gym Gold clients

have distinct preferences about which one or two Lanes of the Wealth Highway they want to work with first.

Analytical people like the idea of the Stockmarket, women are always keen on property and often have a business idea (or existing business / self employed venture going already) while techie and marketing types are drawn towards the internet Lane.

The skill in the early days, as their coach, is in finding out if that is, indeed, their fastest route to the money, as Judith would say.

Because our main goal in The Money Gym is that we want them to recoup their investment as quickly as possible, then go on to create oodles of cash so that they can re-invest it and create more cash, and re-invest it………..you get the idea.

And here is where I get back to the point - hurrah!

We want them to do it as quickly and easily, and effortlessly as possible.

Because why would you want to flog your guts out creating something new, and trying to bring it to market, when you can make pots of cash from following a tried and tested system, a step by step process, one that is proven to work, with colleagues alongside you, and mentors who have gone before, to hold your hand and stop you making painful and costly mistakes?

Why would you go it alone?

I suspect the article was written by a “Creator” in Roger Hamilton’s “Wealth Dynamics” and as one myself (Creator / Star profile moi!) I can almost sympathise.

Almost, because I wasted 38 painful, poor years, trying to create a new business, and bring it to market.

I now harness my creativity into making money out of thin air, created great win/win deals, helping others to create wealth, and finding new ways to make our marketing better.

Who said wealth creation had to be hard work?

And unless your business can create a better return than the property market, why would you go there?  Current blips notwithstanding, the property market appreciates at an average of 10% per annum and the more sophisticated investors create an infinity return on their investment.

Most businesses don’t even break even.

Now, I can hear howls of protest from Judith in the distance (takes a while for sound to travel from Streatham to Shoreham) so I will finish up by saying that we are not anti-business in The Money Gym.

But we are anti-hard work.

So bring us your business idea and we will help you shape it into something that will run happily alongside your property empire building.  We will help you harness the power of the internet to market your business automatically, and then, only when you have nothing to do, will we let you look at the stockmarket.

Unless you want to start there, of course!

Client led coaching, with laser like focus, with a right old boot up the bum, that’s The Money Gym.

Come join us!

http://www.TheMoneyGym.com/Gold

PROMOTION:

Talking of whom, one of the supermodels of the property investing world, Greg Ballard, will be joining us tomorrow to tell us how to get an infinity return on your investment.

Then I will be sharing how to make money from property without buying any.

Then Maria Davies, another star of the property world, will be showing us what she’s buying, and sharing how to buy a luxury holiday home in the Caribbean AND create a monthly income, for just £1000.

toplogomaria Is A Property Boom The Death Of Entrepreneurialism?toplogomaria Is A Property Boom The Death Of Entrepreneurialism?toplogomaria Is A Property Boom The Death Of Entrepreneurialism?

http://www.TheMoneyGym.com/MGPresents/property2.htm


bookmark Is A Property Boom The Death Of Entrepreneurialism?

Property Boom Kills Entrepreneurship

Over at The Business In General Blog there is an interesting article about property booms stifling business start ups.

“The negative relationship between property investment and entrepreneurship is not immediately obvious. However, the recent property booms in Ireland and the U.K. (amongst others) helps to demonstrate this relationship. In recent years, both countries have experienced phenomenal growth in house prices. That is, until everything came grinding to a halt at the end of last year. [1]

The net effect of this boom has been one where the incentive to become truly entrepreneurial was significantly reduced – why try and create a new product or service if there was a guaranteed high return from property development? Similarly, from an investment point of view, why consider any other investment opportunity if there was a perceived guaranteed high return from property development?

In Ireland, the short-term results of the boom were a huge increase in people ‘getting into property’ and in the U.K. every second TV show on Channel 4 seemed to focus on property, e.g. Location Location Location, Property Ladder, A Place in the Sun and Grand Designs. Now all manner of problems are coming home to roost as the market collapses and the scale of consumer debt is becoming obvious. [2]

The Irish Government was happy to continue to fuel the boom, rezoning land for development, and cosying up to property developers [3], given how the huge property related taxes were contributing to their coffers. As David McWilliams, a leading Irish economist points out, a national focus on property is damaging as a ‘country which experiences a property boom turns in on itself. The reason for this is very simple, property cannot be traded. Bricks and mortar are tied to the land and the land is fixed and can’t be exported. Therefore, the discipline of international competition is lost.’

I would go further than this, it also destroys enterprise – there have been countless examples of successful businesses in Ireland shutting down because there is a greater return to be had from selling the property for redevelopment than continuing the business as a going concern. [4]

As someone passionate about entrepreneurship however, I take the view that every cloud has a silver lining, and that the property collapse could prove to be an excellent stimulus for entrepreneurship.

As Michael O’Leary, M.D of low cost European airline Ryanair recently claimed, “I love recessions,” he says. “Recessions are much more fun. Good times are a pain in the bum. Good times, any idiot can make money. In recessions, the good get up off their backsides and start doing the kind of sensible things that they should do all of the time. It’s good for business”. [5]

Now that ‘property development’ is no longer a safe bet, and the Irish and U.K Governments realise that the boom is over, it is likely that entrepreneurship, in its purist form, should take off once again. Those who stretched themselves with high mortgages will face stark options: sell up at a loss, or try to make ends meet. For some, second jobbing will be their only option and this will also help to fuel the passions of entrepreneurship in people. It is also hoped that the respective Governments will play their role, after all their taxation policies and planning policies have helped to fuel the boom in the first place.

Alan Gleeson
Palo Alto Software


bookmark Property Boom Kills Entrepreneurship

Twitter Manifesto - A Great Guide

Michael Brito, over at the Britopian blog, has posted a useful guide to using Twitter successfully:

“I did a search for “twitter manifesto” and I am sad to say that I was not the first to coin this phrase. Darn, there goes my legacy.

For the last couple of months, my participation on Twitter has grown significantly and yes, I have become somewhat addicted. I tend to follow certain peeps who I think I can learn from as well as personal friends and colleagues. Recently I had an ego “reality check” when I realized that a few of those peeps don’t follow me back, even though I attempted to interact with them on several occasions. I then asked myself, “do I provide value to those who follow me?, can people learn from me?, am I not liked?” I always thought I was a pretty likable guy.

I realize that I was taking this way too personal and that the world does not revolve around me; a sad truth of course (jk). David Berkowitz actually sums this situation up quite eloquently. He gives some examples of why one might not reciprocate by following their followers:

They post too often
They post too infrequently
They only post about themselves
They only post links with no commentary
They’re boring
You’re overwhelmed by your current volume from who you’re following and you’re cutting back
You only follow people you really know
I would hope that the last two bullet points exemplify my personal experience.
Nonetheless, I decided to craft my own “Twitter Manifesto” just for Michael Brito. So, here goes.

Don’t expect the people you are following to follow you. It would be virtually impossible for someone like Jeremiah Owyang (@jowyang) to follow all of his 8,000 followers. He is already following over 5,000 and I give him tons of credit for that. If and when someone wants to follow you, it’ll happen organically. If they don’t, DON’T TAKE IT PERSONAL (I am talking to myself right now). If you don’t want to wait, you can always respond to and/or blog about one of their tweets.

READ MORE HERE >>>


bookmark Twitter Manifesto - A Great Guide