Dealing with mock technophobes

How many of you work with someone who claims to be proficient with technological advances but in reality they are a technophobe who hasn't a clue what they are dealing with?  We've all come across one of them I'm sure.  And this isn't a bad thing we all have strengths and weaknesses but we need to recognise them and work to our strengths whilst allowing others to use their strengths to cover our weaknesses.

Do you know what your strengths are? Yes I bet you do but what about your weaknesses? Do you admit to them? Can you recognise them? What do you do to make up for the shortfall in your skills?

Well I'm going to tell you a bit about what I've done recently, and some of the tricks you can utilise to make it seem like you have a full and balanced skill set, until you can plug those gaps or find someone who can!

My weaknesses are spelling, rabbiting on too much, being frivolous with cash at times and allowing others to waste my time.

My strengths are being organised, good problem solver, good people skills and the ability to delegate.

You may ask why I've highlighted these strengths, well its because they are all skills that I sell to my clients to assist with their business but they are also the same skills that will allow me to overcome my weaknesses.

The steps I've taken lately to try and remedy my weaknesses are stop using the spell checker for word processing unless absolutely necessary, I've given myself a three attempts rule before using the dictionary.  This has improved my spelling no end believe me!

Rabbiting on too much is something that has plagued me since I was in Primary school.  Every report card used to declare that "Karin talks too much"  Yes I hold my hand up, my name is Karin and I'm a yap! What can I say? Well I have been making a concerted effort to hold my tongue and listen more and it seems I was missing a fair bit!! So if I seem a bit quieter next time you speak to me that's why.

Being frivolous with cash is a big thing, its not lots of money but about £40 every month that gets spent on my guilty pleasures (stationary, make up and Starbucks coffee) So I'm now on a do I really need it mantra for stationary.  Replacing make up only when its almost empty, not buying the newest colours because they are pretty and then they join the rest of the pretty colours in my make up box which must have £1000's make up in it! And Starbucks is only a treat on a special occasion or when meeting a client off site.

Allowing people to waste my time is a big issue for me. I don't like to rush people on a telephone call, or when we meet face to face I like them to feel important and that I'm not rushing to leave but on the same note I don't have all day to sit and chat and I'm sure neither do they.  So now I've started scheduling time in the day to take/return calls.  You'd be amazed how productive this makes a call.  Most people call you when they have plenty time to chat but if you call them back when you have limited time it halves the time of the call! Emails are only dealt with four times a day. For face to face meetings I set an alarm on my phone to go off ten minutes after the expected finish time of the meeting.  This way you are scheduling your time and it forces you to check the time and make your excuses to leave.  Most meetings have the point made early on and then discussion afterwards but if you schedule a duration when you start its amazing how much more productive meetings can be.



So I hope this has made you realise that we all have weaknesses but small tweaks in them can adjust them to fill the gap.  And if the task you are about to undertake is not to your strengths find someone that is an expert. They can take your core information and make it look amazing, whether its a designer to layout an article or design piece, or photographer to produce images of you or your products, or someone to help improve the flow of your business.  Delegation is definitely a strength and it is one that will help improve your productivity.

Good luck and remember - fake it until you make it!  

Business Success and Awards

Up until recently I was never a big fan of awards for business, the main reason for this is that the majority of awards are self nominated and I feel that if you have to put yourself forward for an award does this mean you are really better than your competitors? Surely you are just better than those who could be bothered to enter? Well I am very surprised to say that my opinion has been changed after the events of last week.


I must admit I did feel that awards were very clique orientated and it was more who you know/what you do for them than judging on merits but I am very delighted to say that last week that my opinion was very much unproven.


I had the delight of attending the  Trend Magazine Life with Style awards at the Marcliffe Hotel in Aberdeen, This was courtesy of Chris Tonner of Beetroot Restaurants .

Chris approached me earlier this year to compose his entry for this years awards.  I must admit I was very sceptical about doing this due to my aforementioned opinion of awards.  However we had a meeting and discussed a plan of action.  This, as it turned out, was a great way for me to get an insight into my clients business plans for the future and where they had come from to date.  Now I'm not going to divulge what turned out to be an award winning plan of action but will let you know that the planning and execution of that plan were to be key to achieving success in the category we entered in.


I, as I always do, put my heart and soul into doing my very best for Chris and the team at Beetroot Restaurants and halfway through writing the entry had a brainwave as to how we could put the icing on the cake of the amazing story they have to tell.  We needed a video! After if a picture paints a thousand words how many does a video paint!


I contacted my trusted photographer Andi Ramsay of Developing Perceptions as we had previously discussed his recent decision to expand his services into the field of videography.  He was sure that we could produce something that would knock the socks off the judges and really seal the deal for the entry - using a belt and braces approach to support the written entry I was producing.


So needless to say we set upon strategising and planning a video and finally putting it into production.  Andi was very kind to allow me to work with him on the filming in an art direction role and this was a great experience for me and allowed me a unique insight into the behind the scenes of a promotional film.


The resulting film you can see here (remember and put your volume on as there is a voice over to it) and I'm sure you will agree that the results are fantastic.  The biggest surprise to me apart from the amazing results was the price! It really is not as expensive as what you may imagine to get a video done for your company and Andis price came in leaps and bounds below the prices of some of the more high profile video production companies locally with absolutely no compromise on quality.


So we had all parts of our entry complete and entered before the deadline back in March, the wait was on.


Chris got notification that we had reached the final of the category and I was absolutely delighted.  He had entered previously and not made it this far.  I was surprised and delighted when he went on to invite me to the dinner in June.


June came round quicker than I could imagine and last Thursday was spent with my stomach in knots of nerves before attending the very glitzy and glam affair at the Marcliffe.  I had secretly decided that I would do a live twitter feed from the room that night to keep my brain occupied.  So dinner was served and was amazing.  They quality and service far surpassed expectations and with 400+ in the room the staff were amazing.  It was then time to get business underway.  Phone in hand I began tweeting the results as they were announced.  This turned out to be a mammoth task but with the exception of one tiny mistake I did it!  We were fourth category up and had a Highly commended in front of us which went to a very deserving Paula McEwan.  The winner announcement was greeted with screams of delight from our whole table.  It was real, everything that we had worked hard for had come to fruition. I was over the moon as was Chris and co.


The winners on the night for every category deserved to win on their own merits and seemed to be awarded on that basis not who/what they know/did.  Congratulations to all the deserving winners and highly commended businesses too.


So I went home reflecting on the unexpected win and the even more unexpected change in my opinion of awards.  So if you have achieved something with your business put yourself forward for awards, recognition is worth having especially if given on merit as these awards were. And if you want a hand doing your entry give me a shout and we can discuss it!






I also would like to take this opportunity to formally thank Chris for the opportunity to assist him in this success and also to Andi for his input in the form of the aforementioned video.


(Here's the award Chris took home last week )

Collaborative working and networking

Its been a busy old time since the turn of the year and I just wanted to share with you all some of the things that have been going on.
Business has been booming since the turn of the year but this could be a lot to do with the collaborative approach to work that I've been taking.  Working with other service providers on projects is definately the way forward.  This gives you an extra edge to the work that you do but on the whole gives excellent customer service to the end user - the client.
This way of working has indeed led to another new project that could really change the way that end users access the services provided by the likes of designers, photographers, IT provision etc (I'll blog about this more soon once it is all up and running but needless to say many cups of coffee and meetings have ensued to bring you this exciting way forward)
Networking is another way that I have been increasing the reach of my business.  You may or may not know that I run a local networking group here in Aberdeenshire called Podium.  This allows local business owners to get together and learn about a business related topic and also get to know other business owners.  As you are probably aware the land of business ownership can be a lonely one and groups like this allow you to realise you are not alone and that someone somewhere has faced the challenges that you are facing just now.
Link to sign up to April meeting
If you want to come along all the details can be found in the above link.