Health,work,life,business,& most important family, we have made a major change

On the 5th of March 2010 my car was serviced. So what has that got to do with health,work,life,business and most important family you may ask? Well that day it made me wake up and understand what is important in life. 

What happened, was I used Liz's car as I had to go to Chesterfield. So I dropped Liz off in Belper. It was a beautiful Spring day, the sky was clear and blue and I then dropped off Jack & Lucy at school. They ran off full of the joys of Spring, waving and shouting 'see you later Daddy'. I then got back into Liz's car and said to myself 'what the hell am I doing?'... this was the first time in about 18 months I had dropped off my children at school.

So we had gone from having a work life balance, to one that was not working for us. Some time before this I went see a nurse at my doctors for a minor issue. When I was there she said 'we have not checked your blood pressure for about 10 years', she tested it and then went to get my doctor, the result of the test was a BP of 110/220. This was very, very high. My doctor put me on a high dosage of tablets to try to get it under control. 

We had got on a big 'hamster wheel' and lost track of what is important. We had gone from one branch in Belper to having another one in Chesterfield. Some of this was the 'hamster wheel' of thinking that growing your business is the best way forward. How often do you hear 'grow your business' or expand? There is nothing wrong with that, but don't fall in to the trap of losing sight of what is important. 

Ask yourself some key questions. Why did you set yourself up in business and what are you doing it for?

Liz and I have had massive guilt trips about the children and the school holidays. The children many times have to come in work with us when it's obvious they'd rather be doing something else. The guilt is that they should be at home playing with friends. Liz has been running Belper and dealing with all the issues meaning has been spending more time managing rather than designing.

So on that evening in March 2010, Liz and I made up our minds to sell our Chesterfield branch. On the 1st of December 2010 we finally sold it. This is going to make a major change for us all. We can now start to get my health, our work, life, business and most important family balance right.

So what I am saying is to keep focused on what is important to you and your family. Don't loose sight and jump on the big hamster wheel and loose track of what is important. It's not how rich you are, but how rich your life is.

From January 2011 we will have the right balance, we will be able to share the school run, so no more of the children in the office until 5pm plus. Most of all Liz and I will be sharing time off for all the school holidays.  

Remember your health and family are the most important things in life so remember to review what is important to you and your family. We wish Dean and Ben all the best in Chesterfield.

12 months Of Twitter.

Cannot believe that 12 months will be here soon on twitter.

Over the last 12 months have had the chance to chat with lots of great people. Twitter has helped us to add new customers and has generated a steady flow of work for our business.

It has amazed me that so many businesses still do not use Twitter or Facebook to help to promote, market and add value to their business.

Here are a few ideas that I have come across or thought about in how Twitter and Facebook can help.

One twitter user who has real embraced it has to be www.twitter.com/Loulouscafe What they have done is that they use twitter not just to promote their offers but to use twitter for face to face networking by arranging meet ups. One key thing is that meeting up and having a coffee is a great way to build up trust and business.

I cannot understand why more pubs, restaurants, cafes etc do not use Twitter etc to promote their menu's offers and guest beers, events etc.

Another sector who are missing business are the likes of hairdressing, health and beauty etc, if you think they can promote offers etc but more important they can use Twitter to promote appointments ie if they have a cancellation they can Tweet it with an offer. Is it not better to get 50% of something than 100% of nothing.

 www.twitter.com/dealdrivers who sell cars at a discount use Twitter to promote offers and also Tweet what is happening out there in the car market. As you think we do not buy a new car everyday but what they are doing is building up trust so that when you are in the market for a new car they are only a phone call away.

The tourism sector can use Twitter to help engage with their customers. A great example has to be www.twitter.com/CrichTramway who use both Twitter and Facebook to promote events, news and to create a following by informing people about their history and heritage.

Websites like www.smarta.com use Twitter to inform followers about new blogs, offers etc.Many more sites should use Twitter etc as this helps to drive traffic to the website.

Twitter and Facebook is about engaging with people and building up followers who are interested in what your business offers or does. 

So in 12 months and about 2000 followers and generating business has to be a great result.

So if you want to add twitter marketing to your business please give me a call on 01773 599159 and let's see what we can tweet about.

Regards

Mike