I got a call from a friend of mine yesterday, she is the managing director of a very lucrative self-help company. She is one hell of entrepreneur,who made millions from a great idea she had in the 90s, and literally is changing people’s lives every day. But I will tell you about her some other time. She was reading one of my earlier posts and was a bit baffled by the term “Business Automation” or in it’s the proper way “Business Process Automation” or BPA.

Let me give you a bit of a background on what it means. If you ask someone from the industry to explain this term to you, you will probably hear many confusing words such as interface, linkage, system functionality. It gets even worse. Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma, redeployment of integrated tools, re-engineering of renovated modules…blah blah blah, this is corporate speech to basically say this, business automation is looking at what a company does and coming up with a software that does it better. Much more simple hey? you got to love corporate speech.

Business Process Automation is a brilliant thing. If you are a medium-sized or a large company, you should definitely come up with a plan of automation. The time and money spent initially will pay it’s worth and much much more very very quickly. It will also minimise risk and errors that are caused by normally very tired and sometimes very bored employees.

For a freelancer, it should be a lot simpler and a lot cheaper! don’t be fooled into spending a lot of money on fancy IT solutions. Just follow this simple exercise. Write down everything that you do on a daily basis. (In corporate  jargon Map out your processes). Think about how you can do them quicker and better. (In corporate  jargon come up with a suggested technological specification for your requirements). Then buy a software that does just that. (In corporate  jargon  purchase an integrated solution).  See, you can do exactly what the big corporates do but with a lot less meetings and headaches. Good-luck!

Hi Readers,

Today, I want to discuss something a bit different. I want to remind you of a fast becoming lost skill. The skill that is being quickly replaced by emails. But a skill that can get you far better results than any other type of communication out there.

One of THE most important skills you have to master to be a success in your business, to take your business up another level, to increase the potential of your business by 100s% and create limitless opportunities for yourself is to know how to do good old fashioned networking.

We, at iQ Desk, see it over and over again with our business, how simple networking can open up endless doors to destinations we haven’t even thought of.

You have probably heard about networking many times before and just tossed the idea aside and never given it a second thought. Thought it to be too time consuming, or too boring. Well, this is mistake number ONE and it is a very costly mistake.

When you are out there meeting new people and targeting your niche, your market, or even your existing clients, you’re literally keeping your business alive.

As a freelancer or any business owner as a matter of fact, you have already realized that you are not alone out there, there is competition. Competition can be fierce sometimes and hard to overcome.

Now, think about the businesses that always succeed, think about the people in your field that seem to make a fortune while others who have the EXACT same skills don’t get anywhere near.. These people are probably being out there, promoting themselves and their business! They are joining endless seminars, conferences, meeting their clients face to face, sending emails and thank you notes and creating a credible name for themselves and their business. And most importantly, building their contact list again and again and again and again! Just by the effect of meeting people who know other people who know other people who know.. In one contact you may have met dozens or even hundreds more. Do you start getting the drift of endless opportunities?

How do you network? Once you have mastered the art of networking, it becomes a second nature and the more you do it, the more comfortable you are. Even if you are the shy type, or you find engaging in small talk or even socializing terrifying, (Some types of freelance work can be very lonely), you need to remember four things:

1. Prepare, prepare, prepare

Before you attend a conference, a meeting or any other social network event, be sure to get ready. A Rooky mistake is to show up not doing your homework. Make sure you know what the conference is about, who the speakers are, if any, the most relevant and latest talk in your field and your main competitors.

2. Get a goal of contacting at least 3 people

There is no much point if you do get out of the house and off your desk to a social networking event, without actually meeting people. If this doesn’t come naturally to you, set a goal to speak with three different people whom you do not know and get their contact details, remember! A smile and a bit of small talk can go a long way when it comes to business. If you are not good in having a small talk and many people don’t know how to do it and resort to talking about the weather or the plans for the weekend, prepare a speech before you get out of the house. Just a little bit of interesting topics to discuss that are relevant to your field of expertise and maybe a little bit of a sales pitch of yourself. Yes, you are there to make contacts that will bring you money! Oh..Yes and don’t forget eye contact. It builds credibility, oozes confidence and makes others view you as a professional and expert in your field.

3. Understand who you’re talking to

People are different. Some have a good sense of humor; some won’t move their lips when they hear a good joke. Some like to talk about themselves, some like to listen. It is very important when you meet new people to understand quickly what type of person you’re talking to. If the person in front of you, is a bit of the philosophical type, try not to show off all your analytical skills while you engage in your few minutes yet potentially long term relationship small talk. If they like to tell stories, try to ask them more questions to encourage them to tell more stories. Make sure you are remembered for the right reasons! If you can master this skill, you may end up with a client for life and sometimes even with a friend.

4. Follow up

Its people’s nature to show a lot of enthusiasm in these events and make promises to each other, but you will be surprised just how many people don’t get anything out of them. After you had met these three contacts and got their business cards, make sure you emailed them and thank them for their time. Also mention that it was a pleasure to have met them. This is called building relationships. Remember! If they now need a freelancer, they will most likely go to you first.

5. Look the part

And last but not least, look the part. Dress and talk appropriately in these conferences, be friendly and smile. Research show that lucky people tend to smile more often.

If you don’t go out there, you might have missed on making a fortune!

Last week I happened to watch the film “Revolutionary Road”. Now, I don’t know what you thought of it, but personally I thought it was a mediocre film with particularly bad acting. But hey, it is just me…

What made me think of this film this morning? I will tell you. There is one line in the film where Leonardo Decaprio asks Kate Winslet if she knew what the meaning of insanity was. And then he goes on and explains to her that it meant that inability to love and relate to another human being. To tell you the truth, I have no idea where he got this definition from, because I know that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting to get different results.

Yesterday, I got a call from our client. He works as a translator, and apparently he has some very big contracts with blue-chip companies. The way he works is , he locks himself in his bedroom in front of his computer, hardly eats, doesn’t speak to his wife and just works constantly until the project is finished. He somehow manages to finish his projects in time , just barely! but he has no life for himself or his family. His wife wants a divorce and he is very miserable. She is even relieved when he doesn’t get jobs at all, so this means she can have a few normal days for their family.

He was so frustrated and yet, did nothing about that at all. I have to admit his behaviour is nothing special at all. MOST of us behave like that. Just carry on with what we normally do and expect somehow that things will turn out differently. Become richer, famous, better looking, but then, if you don’t do anything about that, nothing will happen, sounds simple? of course! so why don’t most of us do something to make what you want to achieve achievable?

Let’s go back to our client here, last month he had a heart attack, I know it sounds extreme, but he really did! he was hovering over his desk as usual, and got very stressed to finish a big job for one of his clients. This client was actually threatening to leave him because he was unhappy with the speed of the job. He got so scared and intimidated so he works himself 3 days flat to get the job done when he started feeling acute chest pains. This is what made him change his mind. This was the trigger that made him want to change something. He called us for help, he decided the wanted major parts of his business to work on auto-pilot. He wanted the booking of orders, the billing and invoicing, the auto emails and work progress to be completely automated and simultaneously transported to the client. He wanted to free himself from hours and hours of work. He loves to translate that is his passion in life, but he didn’t want to deal with the job that comes with it.

This client is getting a completely tailor-made solution. He is not only buying an application. He is buying his life back.

Do we really need to reach the verge of death to change the way we do things? Here’s some food for thought.

I had lunch yesterday with some ex-colleagues friends of mine. As always it has been very nice meeting them, but every time I do, I become pensive and a bit angry.  I left the route of standard employment awhile ago, and every time I meet my friends, it throws me back to the corporate culture. These two friends of mine normally have about 30 minutes for lunch, before they need to get back to their cubicles or to another meeting. So they are always in a hurry. It is basically, sit down, order, eat quickly, pay and leave. It is not the relaxing lunch I want to have with them. But being an employee and working for someone else, makes you behave like that. You have no choice!

Now, I know most of my readers, have left the employee route and are either self employed, freelancers and small business owners. Well, congratulations to you all. But, some of them still have the same lunch routine as the employees’.  The paradox is, you wanted freedom from a work place and now that you are working for yourself, you still end up not having time to sit down and have a nice relaxing lunch.

With employees, their time is someone else’s money, so it is not a matter of finishing work, it is a matter of looking good in front of the boss. With freelancers or small business owners, their time is their money, so any time spent over lunch, is a waste of money. They always try to run after endless duties, sometimes they hardly eat, sleep, or relax. Time is money and it is burning a hole in their pockets. So you can take the free out of freelancer…it is anything but.

Some freelancers or people who work for themselves, give up and start polishing up their CVs again, rushing back to the employee route,truly believing that this is the better, safer option. They rush back to the big corporations with their heads down, trying to hide the fact that they ever wanted to break free. Telling everyone, how hard it was running a business and warning everyone else from ever attempting to.

I believe, and this is the message I want to leave you with today, in being free, working on YOUR business.  If you struggle to find the time to do it all, there are tools out there that can help you become successful. We at iQ Desk reveal to you the secret of automation. Yes, this word doesn’t belong to the big companies. YOU too can also automate your business.  You can also create more time for yourself, you can also ensure that you won’t need to go and dig out your old CV from somewhere. You are going to be proactive and own YOUR own business for life.

Hi readers,

Yesterday, I received an email asking me if I could spread the word on something I read.  Now, I don’t normally spread the word, but after reading this piece, I am gladly going to do so. As you probably know from reading my last posts, I don’t particularly like big corporations, and even less, the people who get so empowered by working in a corporation, that they confuse their own identity and think like a shareholder, not realising that they are merely the employees on a pay cheque and they can easily get a kick in their shareholder-think-alike butt. 

The piece is called The Coming Adwords War by Mike Reining who is a co-founder of MindValleyLabs. If you are not new to the internet business, you must have heard about them, they are two young guys who build a multi-million internet company from scratch, and if you wish to read more about them please go to www.mindvalleylabs.com. 

Now, my point was, in this piece of the Coming Adwords War, Mike was talking about the big corporations of the  of the internet. He gives specific tactics on how to fight the big boys on their place in Google. He is basically saying that small businesses are at immediate risk of getting completely wiped out if they don’t act  now and fast.

If you think of the London high street or any other high street in the western world, you will see the big brands have already pushed out the little businesses that used to proudly be there in the past. They came and ate them alive with their deep pockets and ruthlessness, offering nothing unique at all, just mass solutions to the masses. They’ve already WON the high streets.

The high street of the internet is Google of course, and the shops are Google’s sponsored links.  They are already dominated by the big brands, if you search for a book you will immediately see, Amazon, Waterstones, The big supermarket brands, they are there first.  Has what happened in our high streets  is happening before our very own eyes in the biggest high street in the world? of course it is..

We at iQ Desk, as the owners of a small company, are worried. We can’t bid as high as the other big brands and buy the best spots in Google. If we play in their play ground, will we eventually get eaten alive, however niche we are and however good the product we offer?

Shall all small businesses go and play elsewhere? Build our own search engine where the big brands are not allowed? Or only pledge to buy from the small ecommerce sites? ( This is what we try to do).

iQ Desk is not the only software for small businesses out there. A quick search on Google and you see a lot of companies offering different software with different features and different prices.

And prices vary between $150 to… the sky is the limit. So how do you know what to choose? One of S-Development’s client (the company that developed and run iQ Desk) told us this:

“I was looking for a software to run my business. Everyday when I came back home tired after a long day, I found myself sitting again searching the net for hours just trying to find a simple software that will help me run my business. Each search made me more depressed, I just could not find a software that could do what my business needed. Then, I had an idea to copy from my biggest competitor around the corner. I said to myself, that I would use what they use and this is how I found S-Development Ltd.”

Now, he told us that, even before we started developing iQ Desk. But we kept this in mind when we developed it. Our motto is to keep it simple. Other software sometimes offer you things that may sound like a good idea, but then, they are so complicated to use (and expensive) that you end up not using it.

Take Microsoft Word for example. Great piece of software no doubt. But how many people use all the features? How many use 50% of the features? Do you want to know the truth? 95% use only 5% of the features of Microsoft Word. But they still pay the full price don’t they? But if you only need Word to write a letter to the local council about a parking ticket you better use Google Docs. It is simple and FREE.

We kept the same idea with iQ Desk. We designed it with the features that you need only. We know it because we use it as well. And of top of that, if you really need more, you can give us a call and we will be happy to develop it for you. Now think about Microsoft Word again. You may sometimes need Word to do something that it can’t do, Can you call Microsoft and ask them do it for you. I don’t think so.

With iQ Desk you CAN.