Reilly feels the fear and brings Jive Lounge to BBW anyway - May 2013

If you'd never done anything that scared the garterbelts off you where would you be today?

I had one of those moments when I was asked to speak here today, so I decided not to wear them!

I’m a big advocate of feeling the fear and doing it anyway.

Book my mum read over and over again back in the 80s when she found herself without a husband and three school age children to raise and again when she decided to venture out on her own and start up a debt collection / private eye business, as you do when you're 55 and five foot nothing!

I'm only now beginning to understand the amazing woman she was and how doing things outside of her comfort zone shaped her into the amazing personality that she was… one that needed to have two funerals in two states when she passed away!

In my book that is the true meaning of success; embracing life, taking chances, being interested in people and asking what if?

These are some of the experiences that I believe have shaped me and made me strong enough to feel the fear of starting my business and doing it anyway.

You might be wondering well what's so scary about starting a dance venue. 

Well I'm here to tell you it can create quite an amount of fear when you have actually never done swing dancing or rock n roll dancing or any type of dancing for that matter. But I wanted to dance!

I needed to work and since I couldn't find suitable employment in my "trade" as a debt collector and legal secretary I started to look at what was missing in Byron Shire and what my other strengths were.

Party planner extraordinaire, I mean event management was a very big strength of mine! That combined with seeing that there was a niche demographic of people who wanted and needed an alternative night out to Cheeky Monkeys and the Top Pub! 

In addition to this I had an ace up my sleeve my husband is an amazing singer of 1940s and 1950s music!

Put them altogether and The Jive Lounge was born!

But back to the problem at hand the fear... How can I possibly do this, I can't dance, if I can't dance how can teach and how will people respond when they find out I can't dance and and and, what if, what if, what if..

This is where the "doing it anyway" part kicks in along with the collaborating with competitors and finding mentors!

So I can't dance or teach but I can create an amazing place for this to happen in, so I approached my closest competitors in Lismore and the Gold Coast! 

They can teach and they can dance! 

My now good friends Ray and Chrissy Keepence jumped at the chance to come and teach for me. They like me saw that if your competitors are successful then you will be too. It's good for business!

Its not cheap for me to bring Ray n Chrissy down every month to teach for me and be a part of The Jive Lounge, in fact they are one of my biggest businesses expenses, but without that collaboration I doubt The Jive Lounge would be as popular as it. Not only do they teach but they bring with them a whole network of people that are interested in the same thing. It is good for my business to be connected to their business. 

And now in fact The Jive Lounge is proving to be good for their business. They have seen that there is indeed a need for swing dance lessons every week in the Byron Bay area so they mow teach every week in Bangalow. This means we now have a two-way street, my Jive Lounge patrons go to their lessons and their students become my Jive Lounge patrons! 

The other dance schools, teachers and venues are also now thriving as more and more interest is generated in the scene.

I have seen this method work for cafes and now even in Bangalow we have a Vintage Co-op!

My top tips for collaborating:

• Feel the fear and do it anyway
• Establish a relationship and take time to get to know the other person.
• Be respectful, considerate and friendly
• Start slow and let the natural momentum move the collaboration along
• Pick a collaboration partner with different but complementary skills
• Keep in mind that collaborating with your competition doesn’t mean you give up being competitive when going after business. The most successful businesses, however, find ways to work with their competition strategically that is beneficial for both parties.

• Referrals: If you receive an inquiry from a prospective client that does not fit your skill set or your plate is full, refer that prospect to a colleague instead of just passing on the opportunity.
• Mentoring/Knowledge Sharing: You can start your own mentoring program, or help out a newcomer in the industry on an informal basis.
• Joint Ventures: Have you recently launched a product or service that seems to mesh with the products or services of another professional? Join forces for double marketing, double reach and double impact.
• The key to successfully collaborating with the competition is keeping an open mind and being willing to learn and share your own knowledge. If you go into any collaboration with that frame of mind, you will likely find success.

That first Jive Lounge back in September I had no idea how many people would turn up, I would have been happy with 20, to mine and my husbands and my teacher's delight I opened the doors to a waiting crowd of 70 people! Including by pure chance the world’s top swing dancer and instructor all the way from California!

It’s been a struggle, working out a formula that works for my business and the fear hasn't melted away completely but now I have my weekly dance lessons, a fantastic mentor through the NEIS/SmallBizConnect program, who I meet with monthly, my competitors who are now also my mentors and biggest supporters, my Dutch husband who appears to have no fear, a beautiful person named Tara spends her daylight hours as real estate agent and the rest of her time supporting me, teaching dancing and recruiting new people into the scene and of course the ladies of Bangalow especially Eve and Kylie.

Eve and Kylie's enthusiasm for what I do and what everyone does in Bangalow is contagious and helps to keep me going!

Feel the fear and lose the garterbelts!

Robyn Henderson Ebook and Handouts

Hi All,

We all agree our last breakfast was so beneficial and informative.

Robyn Henderson certainly lived up to her reputation.

To follow up

as promised here are links for you to download free of charge

 Robyn Henderson's Networking Handout 

4 Page Networking Handout 

Robyn Henderson's E-book

Why I Love LinkedIn and How I Went From Zero to 2500 in 12 Months With Robyn Henderson 

Robyn Henderson guest speaker Thursday 14 February 2013

 

Robyn Henderson

Our guest speaker for Thursday 14th February 2013 speaker is an international business educator, strategic networking consultant, author, ghost writer and publisher.

She has authored and contributed to more than 25 books (including 20 on networking and business building and 3 on self-esteem and confidence building).

Robyn has spoken in 12 countries and has never advertised. All her work comes from networking, referrals, LinkedIn and her website.

Her career includes over 20 years as a professional speaker, 10 years in sales and telemarketing management and 13 years in hospitality.

Robyn also successfully ran women’s networks for 6 years in the ‘90s and was listed in the Businesswomen’s Hall of Fame (1997) and listed in the Top100 Spirited Women of Australia (New Woman Magazine).

Robyn was presented with the ‘Speaker of the Year’ award from the National Speakers Association of Australia in 1997 for her contribution to the speaking industry.

In 2000, Robyn received the prestigious Nevin Award – given annually to a member of NSAA whose accomplishments reflect the outstanding credit, respect, honour and admiration of the entire speaking profession. In 2003, Robyn was honoured to be appointed Adjunct Professor at the Southern Cross University in Lismore, NSW, Australia.

Robyn held the role of Executive Officer with the National Speakers Association of Australia from 2007- 2009 and received the 2010 Walter Dickman Award from NSAA in recognition of her contribution to the speaking industry throughout Australia and New Zealand. With more than 5000+ connections on LinkedIn, Robyn is passionate about social media and the face to face and social media networking opportunities available today.

We welcome Robyn Henderson.

Bangalow Business Women’s Social Media Q&A

Welcome to the blog created from the fabulously successful Bangalow Business Women’s Social Media Q&A. Below you will find a summary of the questions and the answers from the panel (to the best of our recollection).

Q: What's the best time to post to increase engagement and reach?

The first answer is: when you know that your ideal customer is listening! So, you need to experiment and look at every insight/stat you can, to arrive at this important piece of data.

If you are starting out, below are some general tips BUT they can run counter to what your real customer is doing online - which you need to understand through observation, testing and if possible customer research!

However, general research tells us the the best time to post is Wednesday's at 3pm, and daily between the hours of 1pm to 4pm! 

Q: What works?

Here’s some recent general research from Zenworkz Authentic Marketing:

92% of pages have acquired a customer or sale through Facebook.

Posts with images get interaction rates 39% higher than average.

Short posts (less than 80 characters) get 23% higher interaction rates.

Using emoticons leads to 33% higher sharing, 33% higher comments, and 57% higher likes!

Pictures with “Caption that?” increases comments by 5.5 times than ave.

25% of fans expect a response to a question or complaint within 1 hour., 6% within 6 minutes!

For every fan there is the potential to reach 34 of their friends newsfeed.

Best words to post: win, new, winner and giveaway.

Worst words to post: $ off, % off, and clearance.

Best ideas to increase engagement:

1. Run a photo contest
2. Ask fans to share tips.
3. Collect fans favourite quotes, (with an offer of a prize for the highest number of likes).
4. Be involved in a group giveaway or competition (i.e. rafflecopter)

Caveat: Very general, and may run counter to your pages purpose and your ideal customers needs!

Engagement Tip from Nic-Nac: Visit the pages that like you or the pages of fans that like you, and leave a nice comment about anything they are doing - and never, never leave a comment saying like my page in return! Doing one and not the other, is guaranteed to improve your engagement.

Tip from Miche Bags - Expect to post regularly but not always get a sale from each post, the posts are about creating interest, if you can drive them to your website (but not in every post) then that will help with sales. 

Q: How do you continually find content for your page?

Zenworkz Marketing: Most important first step is to define what the purpose of your page is, that will help you with content decisions, the second tip is to have a content schedule plan, to schedule days and times for a mix of content: questions, quotes, tips, research findings, event promotions, giveaways and contests etc. Teresa's personal tip is to subscribe to email newsletters that provide information and ideas to stimulate your imagination and help you stay current.

Tips from Nic-Nac: Pin images from Pinterest, share pics from other pages, find quotes etc on the internet, if you’re looking for something in particular – try google images.  Always say “thanks for sharing (e.g. Zenworkz Marketing)!” to acknowledge whose post you’ve liked and are sharing on your page.

Tip from The Office Collective: Don’t have all your eggs (social media) in the one basket!  You need to be looking at other ways to market and engage your clients and audience.  Being on Facebook alone won’t cut the mustard.  Use resources like youtube - it’s quickly becoming the ‘go to’ place for searches and dramatically improves your search ranking.  Also, know your voice.  Your business should have a personality and everything you do online needs to be consistent and reflective of that.  Also, even if you don’t plan to be very active on Facebook it does pay to have a page.  I’ll often buy something that I think is really great and want to share that info with my Facebook friends and family.  If your business isn’t there I can’t tag it and you’ve missed an opportunity for word of mouth advertising (the best kind).

Comment from Zenworkz Marketing: Good Social Media is Integrated Marketing, which includes public relations, email campaigns, advertise on other platforms and even printed advertising.

Comment from Nic-Nac: make sure that you’re not always posting about your products … that can become boring for your likers.  If you walk into a shop, the ideal sales person will be friendly, interested, helpful, make suggestions but not bombard you with the hard sell.  I think Facebook is the same … intrigue people, make them want to see/know more, encourage them over to your website, engage with them, ask their opinions, and above all – THANK THEM for their involvement.  

General Tip: Think outside the box and know the Social Media rules and etiquette.

Last Tip: Test everything out to see if it works for you!

Please comment below if you are seeing very different results for your specific target customer? 
It will help all of us to know how to do it better!

Happy Social Networking!

Karly Nimmo of https://www.facebook.com/theofficecollective

Kylie Mowbray-Allen of https://www.facebook.com/nicnacnappywrap

Jeni Cavangh of https://www.facebook.com/MicheBagsDirect

Teresa Bassham of https://www.facebook.com/Zenworkz.Authentic.Marketing

What Online Marketers don't tell you!

Myth #1 – All you need is a great web site.

Well, the place where it starts is with a well-defined service or product offering. If you don't have a clear picture of who you are marketing to and exactly what you're selling them, the best web site in the world won't get you customers. Before you think about building a web site, you should know who your target market is, how to describe your offering, and what specific benefits your services or products provides for your customers.

The content of your site is much more important than the design. But having a professional-looking design is important, and what really makes a quality design is one that follows web usability best practices, contains simple navigation, and is laid out clearly and cleanly.  A brilliant design and dazzling graphics won't pay off anywhere near as well as a clear explanation of why a customer should buy your product or work with you. Useful content such as articles, testimonials, and other examples of your skills, knowledge and reputation will go much further to persuade prospective customers than a flash website.

Ask your friends, collaborators and current customers to critique your website. Do they understand what you are offering? Can they see concrete benefits to your target audience? Revise your site based on their feedback. 

Myth #2 – You need to be on the first page of Google to be successful.

Google is far and away the most popular search engine on the planet. That’s not in dispute. But Google only has ten spots available on the first page. So, not only is it unrealistic, it’s impossible for everyone to achieve first page status, and even if you do, to stay there! 

Does more traffic = increased sales? More traffic to your web site guarantees you is increased bandwidth use by your web host. Before spending money on banner ads, adwords, web directories, or pay-per-click listings to drive more visitors to your site, you need to be sure that the search audience will want to do business with you once they get there. Getting decent search engine placement is only half of the battle. What you do with that traffic is what’s really important. Your landing pages need to be designed to maximise conversions.

The important tip - is you shouldn’t put all of your eggs in Google’s basket. You should strive to have a multi-faceted marketing approach. That means utilising a variety of methods to generate traffic, like blogging, newsletters, social networking, article marketing, forum marketing, online and offline advertising, guest blogging, question and answer sites, etc. The key is to spread your online promotions across many platforms and media; and that means time plus automation software.

Myth #3 – Email marketing is dead.

There's no question that an opt-in email list where potential and existing customer’s have given permission to you to market to them, is a valuable asset. But the quality of names on your list is much more important than the quantity. Acquiring names through giveaways of other people's material, or purchasing them rarely provides qualified buyers truly interested in your products or services.

Always ask your site visitors and people you meet to join your emailing list and offer them something of value in return.  A well-written ezine, white-paper, or informative video are all effective give-aways. But, your give-aways should be directly related to the products or services you provide and also serve to increase your business credibility. Names acquired from promotional gimmicks or unknown sources seldom turn into paying customers.

Myth #4 – Content is the secret to sales.

The purpose of content online is to build trust between potential customers and your business. Hype-laden web content may be effective in selling, but it hardly inspires trust. Your online marketing persona should reflect the same professionalism as the work you do with your customers. If writing marketing content and materials isn't your skill, then hire a professional copywriter. But be sure you hire one with experience writing for businesses like yours. The content and words on your web site should inspire feelings of confidence about your abilities, and communicate your reliability and solid qualifications. 

The “content is king” mantra seems to have misled people into thinking that ALL you need to do for your marketing effort is to add what you consider to be good content. Content needs to be optimised, content needs to be linkable, content needs to be publicised, content needs to be linked to. Lots of great content remains ignored and unranked as it is passed over for more mediocre but better publicised and linked-to alternatives.

Myth #5 – Just follow the winning formula and you will be successful.

There's only one guaranteed result for online wealth, and that's the business of selling online guaranteed formula’s. There is an infinite number of buyers for every new formula scheme that is invented, but paradoxically, a precious few people actually making money on the web.

Online may be a different medium for marketing than making cold or warm calls, writing letters, or speaking to people in person, but the same proven principles still apply. There is no new winning formula. The secret to finding customers is what it’s always been - build relationships and get people to know, like, and trust you.

If your web site, ezine, and other online-based activities contribute to building long-term, trusting relationships with prospective customers and referral sources, you'll get business on the web. But if you blast your message out to anyone who will listen, aiming for a quick profit, online won't bring you any more business than standing on a street corner with a sign.

Summary Tips:

• Any online marketing should not be separate from your marketing plan but website message, keywords and Adwords, LinkedIn, Twitter, You tube, social media, Pinterest need to be integrate to provide clarity of message and maximising effect. When done properly, social media marketing is an effective way to increase brand awareness, build links to your website, learn more about your target audience, and enhance your credibility with customers.

• The internet has many saturated niches - that’s because that’s where the customers are. It’s how well you position yourself within a particular niche that will determine your success or failure. It’s all about differentiating yourself from your competitors. You have to clearly explain to people what makes you different and/or better than your competitors. Then, you have to exploit those differences consistently. So, don’t run away from a crowded niche, embrace it.
• Any online marketing campaign needs a good PR campaign to support it.

• Understand the fundamentals of SEO and ensure that they are implemented while your website is being built, particularly if you are doing it yourself. Remember, it’s far more important to write for your visitors and intelligently use your keywords in certain places on the page – sure it’s logical that they should be present in the body text, but search engines will attribute a far higher weight to words mentioned in places like the page titles, image alt tags, headings, bold and italic text etc. 

• Measure: conversion rates, segmenting visitor sources, looking at link acquisition rates, keyword $ values and ultimately sales volumes. Not many people will tell you they value visitor numbers over sales.

• Provide lead nurturing via, interactivity and data capture, but make sure you are giving something to gain their permission to market to them.

• Add social button to your site that are appropriate and have a clear purpose for being.

• Ensure that any video is authentic, has a clear purpose, adds value and is entertaining. Otherwise don’t bother.

• Be very clear about your pricing policy, it’s slippery slope from Free - there is often no way up from there to convert a free customer to a paid one.

These are the many things that Online Marketers don’t tell you about. The industry is viewed through very rose tinted glasses. Remember – if it was that easy everyone would be doing it. Running a business is incredibly hard work and it takes time to get results and Online Marketing is no different.

About: Teresa Bassham is the Director of Zenworkz Authentic Marketing, an Australian marketing consultancy, that coaches small and medium professional services businesses.

Teresa is a marketing specialist and researcher with a long career and bachelor qualifications in services marketing, market research, and behavioural performance coaching and leadership development.

More importantly,Teresa loves educating and inspiring small and medium business, and will show you her passion and commitment in delivering results for you and your business.

Are you looking for a marketing coach who you can trust, learn from and be inspired by?

Website: http://www.zenworkz.com/

Suzie Mylecharane - Be passionate about what you do

"I know you are all here to learn some new ways to become more business savvy and I think it is easier to imbed these tips into my background stories of where I have been and what I have done.

I had a fortunate schooling going to an opportunity school since I was 10 and then a selective girls high school after that. Both these taught me how to be independent, which is a good start. My career started as an infant’s teacher (to please my mother) but my desire was really to do something more artistic. After returning from my first trip overseas at the age of 21, I made my first leap.

I have had a lot of luck in my life and this has taken me in the right direction providing me with great teachers along the way. I had the opportunity to run a business within a business for the In Shoppes, a chain of clothing shops in Sydney back in the late 60’s. Prior to that I had set up and managed stores for them and done some overseas buying. This new opportunity was setting up a cottage industry knitting business, which gave me the chance to design. My team of Italian and Greek women worked from their own homes. I loved it, especially the once a month lunches because those ladies knew how to keep a great veggie garden on the go, bottle their own wine etc. Those times gave me a great sense of running a business, but unfortunately not the financial side of things… that would come later.

During that time I had a taste of the theatre by doing the costumes for the original stage production of Hair.  What an amazing era that was!! And with two jobs at the same time it meant I had a great income. It didn’t mean I was smart enough to maximize by buying a home.  I should have, but I was young and I was enjoying my life. My smartness for that came later. I am glad I didn’t in retrospect buy a house in Sydney, as it gave me more freedom to move up here 4 years later.

It is very important to make the most of opportunities that come your way to learn and expand your knowledge and gain from every new experience.  Don’t worry if things don’t present themselves or you don’t have the luck as you can also create your own opportunities too. 

Tip: You have to keep your eyes open.

 Be sure you are alert enough to recognize a good opportunity when it presents itself. I lived and breathed my businesses for so long. One thing is for sure - passion is important to your success.

Tip If you are not doing something you love then change direction. I am now 65 and still love everything I do and part of that is because I am also evolving all the time!! Otherwise I’d be bored!

The early Sea Change to this area came 39 yrs ago, to follow a more alternative lifestyle, grow my own veggies (which to this day I am still doing …Hmm wonder where I got that from!!) raise two children and have as much fun as I could with the different work I was choosing to get into. When I left the corporate world in Sydney they all said, “You are a city girl, you will be back in 6 months”….Wow were they wrong!!

Fast forward: After 14 years I left my marriage with a 10 and 8 yr old and had to run my own business with no support, except child sharing, from the father.  Sometimes hard times are good for us. As a result I became more independent and even stronger from then on.  I continued on doing everything from designing, cutting, hand painting and sewing. It was all up to me now!

Gradually over the next few years I started to employ people until I had 12 casual employees. I sold Australia wide and to several shops in England. And this was all from my home base at Uki. I employed the same cottage industry setup I had learnt to do from Sydney. 

My tip - reinvent what you know best!  If I can do it you can too!

I can still visualize my workroom now, with walls covered in great ideas I wanted to execute, fabulous positive success stories pinned up, and inspiration around me as I worked.

During this time I took as many courses as I could to help me reach my goals. TAFE (for pattern making and sewing as other people had done that when I worked at the In Shoppes) and Byron Region Community College then ACE (for computers and bookkeeping… I couldn’t even type in the beginning). Tip it is so important to educate yourself to run your business. You must understand every aspect to hand over roles to other people.

I have never created a business plan because I envisage it all in my head. I plan the directions I want to take and where I want to be next year and the year after etc. If writing a business plan is the way you do it, that is fantastic too. I even did a course but somehow I just couldn’t get it on paper but I could in my head… I see new directions all the time. Tip: do it your way!

During this time I started to get a handle on the financial side of things. I remember crying on my bookkeepers shoulder so many times in the early days.  “I am looking after so many local people by employing them and what is left for me “. I was a little impatient then, because in the beginning and especially if you don’t have a lot of capital, you have to pour so much back in to make your business grow. After a few years though, it all paid off and I was starting to reap the wonderful monetary fruits of my labour. TIp: never give up

 Through all this I learnt to recognize how the finances worked and although I have always had a bookkeeper, in the beginning I prepared all the work myself. At the start I had trouble even keeping my dockets so I wasn’t a natural.  My tip – work alongside your bookkeeper in the beginning to comprehend what works and what doesn’t and how it all fits together.

I have had 4 businesses during the past 25 years. Three in the clothing industry with the first manufacturing here in Australia (economically harder to do these days but I had a work ethic to keep everything Australian made…. I did that for 13 years).

 After about 4 years to give myself a break from the big workload of 5-6 days a week, I started the second when I commenced manufacturing a winter range of my own designs in Northern Thailand.

I have a very good eye for what sells so for the past 10 years, after selling off parts of my manufacturing business and building a home for myself in Ewingsdale, the third business of buying off the rack in Thailand commenced. I have the buying down pat now. I put a lot of time into studying the trends by scouring the fashion magazines and creating the season’s look I want to follow and put it together. Then I walk the streets.  I go to one of the most polluted cities in the world and I come home like I have been to a health farm. How can that be?  Well I swim a km every morning and I walk all day long and I drink more water than I ever do here. It is so much fun and like I said you have to do something you love.

My market stall started when manufacturing, to sell off my seconds but I realized how much I enjoyed it and have kept it going ever since. I think people think I haven’t moved on in my business because I am still there. They say Oh you are still doing the markets but up until this year I had almost 25 shops around Australia that I sold to. If you run your business properly it is a phenomenal cash income. I thoroughly enjoy those two days a month at Bangalow and Byron Markets. Get my card at the end as it tells you where I am. Tip: Never go anywhere without your business card.

So to keep your business pumping you have to be constantly researching and identifying new trends. This includes online, in print media etc. My tip - read magazines so you can follow other successful peoples ideas. I remember in the early days cutting out articles of people’s success stories and pinning them on my work shop walls to inspire me.

My 4^th business was the music events company Ku Promotions which I set up from scratch alongside Ku Clothing, 25 years ago.  When I moved to Byron I scaled down the clothing and put most of my attention to the Promotions, doing only the markets in that time. Four years ago I sold the Promotions business, as I was starting to get tired of late nights and sitting in front of the computer for long stretches at a time each day.

 I did a similar thing with that business. Again, my tip - If something isn’t working for you analyze what you can change to be happier and hopefully make more money. This is a very important thing to be able to do. Many people don’t like making changes but I have always embraced it. Dive into bringing new ideas into your business. You will be amazed sometimes how much better off you will be. As soon as I saw the results I had no fear anymore. My tip - don’t be afraid to take risks but assess them first. Don’t invest large sums of money into anything until you feel confident it is going to work. Sometimes a gradual approach is best.

In my opinion it is essential to have very effective branding to ensure you stand out in the marketplace. I am an extremely visual person so love to take part in this aspect of the business. I have a fabulous graphic artist who has been with me for the last 15 years so that I always get the look I want. Tip get the image you need together

As time went on I have learnt to get the maximum profits from the least work…. Takes a while to develop this skill and gain the trust of those working for you too. Choosing employees is important as you must be sure they are really giving their all to support you and your business.

Once you have found a good person treat them really well with bonuses and finding ways to motivate them. I have had so many great people working for me over the years and even now we have moved on, I consider them my friends.

Sharing information… now called networking is really valuable. Some people are still hesitant to share too much information I think they fear the recipient will steal their ideas… I developed sharing into mentoring other people. I assisted around 7 people in regional Australia to do the same music promotions as I had developed …. 2 are now running their own festivals and I helped them establish their business.

You will learn so much by talking to others about ways to do things.

I guess my forte is starting businesses from scratch and setting up my own systems and processes. I don’t think I am a natural at that, I have just thought so much about how to do things, I have formed my own systems. You can run a business from anywhere these days thanks to the internet. So Ku Promotions was only contacts and computer systems but so thoroughly thought out that it was fool proof. So many people have followed my way of doing things since then. My tip - I think making mistakes should be looked on as a good thing not a bad (not that I enjoyed it when it happened) as long as you view it the right way it will always takes you a step forward.

I am now semi retired but still love to progress new ideas all the time. I still work at the markets and travel overseas buying twice a year and sell to only eight shops now. I am currently setting up my facebook page for the clothing and have just joined Community Engine. I hope you will join me in both these."

Suzie Mylecharane  ... view her collection here ku clothing or follow her on facebook or community engine

Seize the Day - Rebekka Battista and time management

This month Bangalow Business Women's Network was honoured and pleased to present Rebekka Battista.  She left all with a lot to think about - most of us discovered we leave very little time in our schedules for fun with family and friends.

Rebekka Battista is a local girl who currently is the Our Kids Fundraising Coordinator. Based at the Lismore Base Hospital, Rebekka has been instrumental in raising awareness about the need to improve the health services for our children in the Northern Rivers area and the importance of raising funds with the help of the local community, she has inturn raised the funds to purchase over $1 million of paediatric equipment for our local hospitals.  She currently balances charity work, paid work, church activities and a busy family.  This is a woman who manages her time so that everyone in her life gets the very best of her.  There is certainly a lesson for all in that!

Here are Rebekka's helpful questions and tips for getting your time in order. 

Seize your Time and gain Balance 

1. Do you take/have a time out? 

2. If you have one, do you spend with your partner? 

3. When and what do you do to laugh? 

4. Do you use a diary?

5. Do you exercise? If not why? 

6. What relaxing you? When do you do this? 

7. If you have family, what do you do as a family? 

8. Do you have friend time? If not why? 

Tops Tips Turn Chaos in to Order 

1. What do you love to do?  Schedule it into your week first - no excuses.

2. Plan your home time: Work it out with your family. Write your weekly household schedule/roster.

3. Plan your week, for example;  Thursday morning are my meeting days. Wednesday arvos is filing.  Bookwork is Tuesday morning.

4. Know your optimum time in the day and plan the hardest or least liked job for this time.

5. Task list or To Do List:  Prep list, then Prioritize your tasks by Number.  Go through the list and group, i.e. all phones calls together.  In other words, deciding which task is most important and should be completed first.  Is it more important to write letters or do bookwork?  Do them in that order.

6. Put reminders in your email calendar and link them to your phone.

7. Schedule surfing the web or network media.

8. For those who take minutes at meeting:  Take a laptop and do it on the spot plus have action/task column and assign them.

9. Take five minutes to Plan your day before you go home and make a time where you plan or ‘map’ your following week.

Remember girls:  

Everyday is only 24 hours .

If you fall off the wagon, wake up and shake it off.  Tomorrow is a brand new day☺

Follow the links to download your copy of Rebekka's time organiser in pdf or excel format:

PDF: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B1lxTCn31EqrdlU2R3pHOGNZM2c

Excel: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B1lxTCn31EqrV0VZSnVLYnNnRk0