School Demands

Last Thursday, there was a letter sent home from school say that it would be shut on Tuesday as the electricity may be off in the area whilst maintenance was performed.  Whilst I don’t argue that the school should be shut in these circumstances, what I resent hugely is the 2 working days notice of this closure.  In fact, I’ve been ranting to anyone who will listen about it!  I cannot believe that the electricity company gave the school just a few days notice.  Even if the school were investigating whether the school had to be closed they should have warned parents that a closure might be necessary.

Actually, I can cope with this amount of notice as I have a flexible job and understanding colleagues that will work around this with me.  But what about all the parents who don’t have this?  I have a huge bee in my bonnet generally that school seems to think that all parents have no other commitments and can action requests by school at a moments notice.  Of course they don’t think this but they do act a lot of the time like they do.

Schools need to realise that most parents work and they cannot produce a fancy dress costume on Friday if asked on Monday!  They cannot attend an essential meeting with a week’s notice.  And whilst I’m in rant mode they also need to realise that most people struggle to get home from work before 6 and scheduling two school performances in the same week makes it very tricky to attend both.

As I said, I don’t have a problem with any of these requests, but I’m very aware of my parallel life where I went back to work rather than setting up my own business where I can working part time and flexibily – in that life that Sam is struggling with these demands big time as many parents do.

 

Nice work

I’ve just come back from meeting our US master franchisor in Arizona. It was a great trip and well worth the jet lag! One big difference in culture is how nice everyone else. Obviously I am telling you this based on a week in a suburb of Phoenix and I’m sure that other parts of the US are very different but I’ve decided that it’s worth talking about because it really works. Everyone was nice, nice people greet you in the shops, sales assistants offer you help, nice waiters who can’t do enough for you, nice hotel staff are always smiling, nice cab drivers don’t moan about the weather but ask if we eat trumpets in the UK and even a nice check in desk person at the airport. Everyone seems so chilled, not rushing about and I didn’t hear one cross voice the whole time.

Yes, it’s all quite sugary and I’m sure they can’t all mean it but it’s quite infectious. You get completely swept along with it. I found myself cheerily joining in to reply ‘I’m good and how are you’ with a big smile on my face. I get home to the UK and the difference is stark and I’m back to my normal self going about my business, polite but not that cheery and sometimes a bit grumpy. I found that I started worrying about small stuff again, I hadn’t even noticed that I had stopped this when I was in the US. I’m now thinking that maybe us Brits do deserve our reputation of being whingey? Though I blame the weather for this mostly.

So I decided to conduct a little experiment by going about my day to day life the American way. Every shop I’m ‘Hello, how are you’ + huge smile and it was … well frankly exhausting but such a positive experience too. I had little chats with every one, a joke with the man in m&s, discussion about karate with the lady in Tesco, the assistant in Monsoon complemented me on my nails and I found out she rides a horse! Granted I wasn’t in a rush because all this took time although I think worth the effort, and I didn’t have time to worry about the little things that had bothered me in the morning!

I also wonder what the recipients of my chirpiness thought? I expect it was that I was drunk, insane or lonely – or all 3!

Anyway I’m going to try and keep it up as I like the ‘nice’ me so if you see me grinning insanely you’ll know why.

You have a great day now!

Neither one thing nor the other

We are led by our children

I do love what I do and having my own business is one of the best things I’ve ever done, I couldn’t imagine my life if I hadn’t created What’s On 4.

One thing I have been thinking about recently is how I fit in with my peers and I find myself neither a stay at home Mum nor a working Mum.  I’m somewhere inbetween.  It means I can’t do many of things my stay at home Mum friends do but neither can I gel completely with my working Mum friends as I have a great deal more flexibility than most of them do.  I’m not complaining but it was just an observation that hit me last week when thinking about the last 10 years and how I started my 4th decade differs to how I will end it (Yes, a big birthday is looming… much much later this year!)

Of course this is where networking with other woman and mums in business is useful and I’ve been a bit rubbish at this recently.  Partly time of year but also now because I have my lovely shiny business partner, Suzanne Borrell, to share all this with.  It really is amazing this past year having someone completely in your corner who understands everything you are going through, the good and bad stuff.  Hopefully I’m not such a business bore to my other friends now too!

Awards – Are they worth it?

Sam gets yet another award

Ok so I think you probably know my opinion on this one!  Given that my company What’s On 4 runs a number of industry awards programmes and I have won awards myself!

Awards do make a difference both personally and professionally, I have experienced this and I know many people that have too.  For someone running their own business gaining an independent endorsement of what you do and how you do it is a big pat on the back.  And more importantly it’s something that existing customers can be proud to be part of and that new customers will want to be part of.

But it’s not all good news.

What if you don’t win?  Lots of people don’t win of course, I’ve not won many many times!  But the process of applying is a good bit of business therapy as you have to tell someone what you have achieved.  There is a lot to be gained by this alone.

And being shortlisted or a finalist is pretty impressive and you can still use it for some good publicity.  Look at how many finalists in the X-factor have gone on to have successful careers!

There are a huge number of awards programmes for anything and everything so it can be quite daunting when you’re first considering being part of an awards.   I always look at the organisation running it, sponsors and previous winners to see if I want to be associated with them.

There are awards for employees, products and services as well as businesses so don’t forget these parts of your business when applying.  You could then be a multi-award winning business.

So a quick plug for the 6th What’s On 4 Junior awards now open for nominations in the UK and Australia

I don’t know how she does it

I was given the book ‘I don’t know how she does it’ by a good friend for Christmas, you might have read it?  I ‘consumed’ it in 2 days!  For me it was like reading about my parallel life.

If you don’t know, the story is about a working Mum and her failing juggle to manage her family and a very stressful job with an employer who has no tolerance of her family commitments.   She spreads herself so thin that nothing works and she barely exists as she is torn between her children, husband, job and everything else.  It’s a comedy and of course situations are exaggerated to make it a good read but it also pressed my serious button.

I didn’t go back to work after having my baby because I knew that this could have been me.  This book really did make me realise that I had made the right decision.  I don’t have it perfect but I have it a lot better than if I’d gone back to my previous job as a financial services project manager.

So this morning, as I start a new year of work and get back to What’s On 4, I’m glad that I’m not on a packed train to London, I’m glad I’m not sat in an big flashy office, I’m glad I’m not preparing for meetings but I’m glad that I had to brave the gales and rain to take my daughter to school and I’m glad I’m writing this blog now!  Happy New Year

Extra in Hollyoaks

Sam during the workshop - Just call me 'Ms Willoughby'! *

Well it certainly felt like that when I went to Queen Mary College in Basingstoke last week to take part in a Business and IT day for the students.

There were about 80 students from 2 colleges, a mix of business studies and IT, aged 16 or 17 and I presented 2 workshops on Internet Business and was one of the people on the open questions panel.  The other workshops covered topics including social media, cloud computing and business planning – all really good stuff.

One of the questions I was asked was from 2 of the IT lecturers who wanted to know if I had any tips for encouraging more girls into IT.  I’m not sure I know the answer to this one as I’ve always been in IT and have seen a fairly even balance of woman and men in the companies I’ve worked in.  What I could stress was how my background in IT has given me the perfect basis for my business now which is about as flexible as it gets.  And that’s not just for the Mums but for the Dads too, our Irish franchisee and USA master franchisee both fall into this category! But I don’t suppose many 16 year olds are thinking about when they become a parent, I know I didn’t!

My workshop ended with my top tips for having your own business so here they are:

• Get a wide variety of general business experience

– Project Management is good as exposed to product development and ops

• Make the most of being an employee

– Training, paid holidays & sickness, regular income

• Get a coach and/or mentor

• Do what you know

• Consider starting your business part-time (be a 5 to 9er)

• Focus on Profit not your Product

• Remember this is a long game

I was very proud to be asked to be part of the day and hope that I helped some of the students in their study and world of work.

*I’ve just borrowed the watermarked version of one of the photos taken on the day for the Basingstoke Gazette whilst I wait for my copy!

Diddidance does BabyExpo

Following my last blog about BabyExpo I wanted to share another person’s experience of the baby show with you.  I’ve met Anne-Marie from diddidance a few times now so I was delighted when they joined us as part of the packed stage programme to entertain little ones and big ones alike!  Here’s what they got up to…

On Sunday 13^th November 2011, diddi dance owner Anne-Marie Martin, Croydon Franchise owner, Melissa Lodge and Brighton Franchise owner Laura Gardner went to the seaside to perform live on stage with Phil Gallagher, CBeebies creative king, AKA Mister Maker!

A massive crowd of 4500 people from 23 different counties came to the event which diddi dance was very proud to be headline sponsors of.

With everything on offer from pushchairs to nappy cakes, the Brighton baby expo had a huge number of attractions but it was diddi dance that stole the show with the performance of the weekend.

Nearly 100 children joined in as the diddi dance team, Mister Maker’s Phil Gallagher AND Number Jack 4 wiggled, jiggled and jumped their way through a brilliant diddi dance session.

Diddi dance were also on show in a prime location in the main hall. New Mums and Dads flocked to the diddi dance stand to hear the word about diddi dance classes, nurseries and parties in their part of the UK.

Franchise Director, Arabella Gunn was also on hand to talk to a number of visitors who were keen to find out more about setting up their own diddi dance business.

A rip roaring success of a weekend for everyone ended with hundreds of new diddi dancers going home happy, thousands of new mums and dads seeing and experiencing diddi dance for themselves and one CBeebies star having being made an honorary diddi dancer!

BabyExpo …Uncut

This weekend the What’s On 4 team flocked to Brighton to set up and then run the BabyExpo baby show in Brighton.  This is the 3rd BabyExpo but the first that What’s On 4 have organised as the new owners.  Luckily the gorgeous founder of BabyExpo, Suzanne Borrell, also came with the deal so we had someone with 20+ years of event organising showing us how it is done. 

So I knew it was going to be an exciting and busy weekend but I didn’t realise I was going to factor up both the excitment and work by atleast 100!  I don’t think I have worked so hard in all my life.  I certainly didn’t realise how many miles I was going to have to walk or how intense the whole experience was.  The show was a huge success with record visitor numbers and exhibitors. 

Our old friend Phil Gallagher from Cbeebies Mister Maker and Jo Tantum the baby sleep expert were hugely popular and I had to look after them for most of the day.  It was big responsiblity but also lots of fun – especially as they are both such lovely people.  I also helped out with reception, trouble-shooted as needed and tidied/unpacked/packed anything and everything.  Doesn’t sound a lot but it seemed to occupy every minute of my time!

I did find time to ’bump’ into Patsy Palmer aka Bianca from Eastenders who came with her children to visit the show!

mumandworking were also there as sponsors of the very popular Flexible Working Zone and our www.whatson4me.co.uk master franchisor, Marilyn Bradshaw, made the long journey south to join us too!  And we announced the start of the What’s On4 2012 Junior Awards that will be running from January alongside the What’s On 4 2012 Junior Awards in Australia!

Our whole team worked so hard, dealing with everything that was thrown at them with such dedication.  We really do have top people working at What’s On 4!

So this was ’my’ BabyExpo experience and here are some of my mobile phone photos…Oh and check out the Brighton Mums Live Blog from the day including Phil Gallagher from Cbeebies Mister Maker dancing!  Official vid and photos will be online at www.brightonbabyexpo.co.uk/baby-show very soon.

Me and lovely Phil Gallagher from Cbeebies Mister Maker

A Numberjack Joined Us for the Day

The Stunning Amex Stadium - We weren't allowed on the pitch though!

Inspiration, action and awards

A very fuzzy photo - am sure pro ones will do her justice!

I ache all over and I’m exhausted! I haven’t taken up cage fighting but I have been part of the team organising the BusinessMums Summit and mumandworking 2011 awards ceremony that took place yesterday in Brighton.

The day was amazing and could have gone better. There was such a positive vibe that didn’t let up at all.

Personally I was inspired by the speakers particularly Laura Tenison MBE of Jojo Maman Bebe, Kate Garraway of ITV’s Daybreak and now her own business goodypass.com aswell as the ladies behind Yummy Lollies.

I am also taking action, as was stressed throughout the event, and have a couple of things in hand.

And I must not forget our mumandworking awards and the very worthy finalists and winners.

The BBC South East news programme featured the event last night and ITV Meridian will be as well!

Very much worth all the hard work!

Do you really believe?

I was introduced to The Secret by my coach about 20 months. The principles (translated by me!) are that positive thoughts attract positive things and to get what you want you have to really believe in it and the universe will deliver it. You don’t need to worry about the ‘how’ but you must REALLY REALLY believe.

 This sounds quite simple when you first hear it but  really believing is REALLY hard.

First lots of little niggling doubts creep in: ‘You’re asking for too much’ ; ‘It will go wrong’ ; ‘This is stupid and won’t work’!  I’ve found it takes practise to quieten these little voices asking these annoying questions but it can be done.

Secondly you have to take practical steps to demonstrate your belief.  So if you want to see your turnover increase to £1 million then put that in your cashflow, increasing each month or write yourself a massive dividend cheque and start looking at holiday or car brochures if that’s what you would spend it on.

I’m not into mumbo-jumbo at all – and maybe the idea came for me at a time when I needed something to pin my dreams on – but I’ve tried to apply The Secret techniques to my business and, although I don’t know how it works, I do believe it does.  I believe it works because I’ve franchised my business in the UK and Internationally, I’ve a fab business partner and our company bank balance is happier than it’s ever been.

However, I often find myself failing to apply the principles of The Secret when something rubbish happens or I fail to put enough effort into it.  The voices ask the questions louder and the doubts and negative thoughts creep in.  

But I now find it easier to pull myself up again, once I’ve consciously registered it has happened, and get back to my positive thoughts. 
So why not give it a go?  It may also work for you…