Dawn Brewer

I really like Twitter. I joined in as an experiment, but I’ve found two benefits that aren’t mentioned that often (if at all) so I thought I’d share them. 

Yes it’s easy to send out a message and yes it’s easy to keep my interest with such a short message, but there’s more to it than that. As ever, all your comments and thoughts are welcome too.

Twitter Benefit 1 – To Learn

Do you realise that you can learn using Twitter? It’s free and it doesn’t take long.

When I started to use Twitter I had no idea that choosing people to follow could be so rewarding.

If you choose people who have something to share that you want to know about, then you can learn – a lot! For example, I started to follow a few expert bloggers and wow have I learned a lot – in a really short time. Although putting it into practice and taking action is another story…

Of course the knowledge isn’t usually in the Tweets, it’s in the people and looking at their profiles, following the links they recommend and reading their blogs and websites.

So, find people to follow that know what you want to know – and you’ll learn from them.

Twitter Benefit 2 – No More Home-Alone Working

Working from home can be isolating. Being online with Twitter means you can have a ‘coffee break’ and connect with colleagues worldwide.

I work from home and although I do visit client sites, meet people, attend networking events and I’m not housebound, I spend most of my working hours alone, at home. That can be very isolating – and the scary thing is that sometimes I don’t even realise how long it is since I’ve connected with someone else. (talking to the dog – and waiting for a reply – is a sign!)

When I make a cup of tea or take a break, I can share a joke, pass on some info and find out who else is online and what they’re doing – without being interrupted and that’s the key for me. Twitter’s there for me to join in when I want to – not when someone else is interrupting me.

It’s not the same as meeting at the coffee machine – but then it’s not a bad compromise and I can walk away whenever I want without being rude.

So, if you work at home a lot, join in with Twitter and no more isolation. Follow dawnbwriter (that’s me).

Did you set any 2010 goals? How are you doing with them?

It’s the end of January already and this month has galloped by for me. I set myself some goals for the year – which meant I also worked out some January goals to get me along the way – and I’m glad to say that last night I achieved one of my most important ones. I now have 50 Suite101 articles live – made me smile anyway

There’s been an awful lot written about goal setting and goal achievement - and a fair amount of what’s written has been pretty awful too I think. If only it was as easy as making sure that goals are SMART, writing them down and then waiting for it to happen. The key to goal achievement is in the action that we take – and making sure it’s the right action. This quote from Benjamin Franklin sums it up for me:

We need to be sure we’re working on the right things for us.

If you’d like some help or a refresher on goal setting, then you might want to sign up for this FREE email course on Goal Achievement.

I’d love to know if you achieved your January goals – or what your February goals are – or what you think of goal setting and goal achievement. Leave me a comment and let me know…

I’ve written an article about the three Es of management:

• Effectiveness
• Efficiency 
• Economy

Different organisations will all have different mixes of the three, but an understanding of what the model means allows performance to be measured and improved.

What I’d really like to know is whether this article makes the difference between Effectiveness, Efficiency and Economy clear?

I’ve just completed an article on The Project Management Triangleand whilst I was writing it it struck me how well the triangle explains the difficulties faced by small business.

Understanding and managing constraints is an important activity for all businesses, so having a model that identifies three common constraints can help us. 

The project management triangle identifies three constraints:

• time
• cost
• scope

The idea is that if you change one then you’ll affect the others too, for example, increasing the time available will affect cost and allow scope to grow – and isn’t that just like running a business or implementing any change in a business. We only have so much time and budget available and we’re constantly trying to deliver as much as possible (the scope) within that.

If we want to deliver more, then we have to find more time and/or more budget – by employing someone or asking more suppliers to help us or taking out a loan.

So, the only way to grow is to improve capacity at one of the constraints. What do you think?

I was a a little surprised today, talking to a couple of business colleagues, at their lack of understanding about why to add a comment to a blog post – and how to do it too.

I’ve just written a short article explaining how to add a comment to a blog post. I’ve also given a few reasons why I think it’s worth taking  the time to do it – especially if you’re a small business and want more visitors to your own blog or website.

Adding a comment doesn’t take very long and helps build relationships and connections – always a good thing on the web. So, please, take the time now to let me know what you think of my articles or add a comment below.

Almost the end of January and my first networking event of 2010 was today: The Womens Business Clubs in Horsham.

Good meeting! Janette Whitney talked about business planning – very interesting tips. Debbie has a new Beauty Works website… and lots more…

What struck me particularly was the upbeat attitude in the meeting. A number of members reported increased business already in January and plans for growth in 2010 – all good news. I don’t know about everyone else, but I came away positive and ready for work.

I’ll be launching two new services soon (based on blogging and hosting) and I found it helpful to bounce ideas off the people there today – so, Thank you, to all of you. Proof that business networking is effective for all sorts of reasons.

Why not head over to Janette’s Blog on Business Planning and leave a comment.

Last month (December 2009) I gave a short talk to TWBC Horsham about websites,  specifically 5 Tips to Avoid a Woeful Website and I promised to write an article about it, summing up my talk.

Well – I am a bit wordy! – and that article has turned into a series. The first How Can Small Business Optimize Websites? is finished and there are more on the way… who knows maybe when they’re all finished and I’ve had some feedback I could turn them into a short ebook – now there’s an interesting thought!

The main point I make in this first article is to make sure that you know the purpose of your website and the purpose of each page on your site too. That will help keep the focus.

Imagine you have a shop in a huge shopping mall… or you have a website on the Internet… some visitors will know exactly what they’ve come in for and want to complete their business as fast as possible – imagine ‘popping into Boots’ and not being able to find what you’re looking for? SuperDrug here I come! Other visitors will be happy to browse – but even those people browsing will need some directions especially if your website has lots of pages – ever consulted a store directory in a department store (or been irritated when you couldn’t find one?). Thinking about your visitors and their journey through your website will help you design the best website for you and your business, by putting your visitors first… and that comes down to defining the purpose.

Three things I find woeful about websites:

• Website that take too long to load – Yes I have got broadband, but I’m impatient!
• Websites that have spelling mistakes and bad grammar – well, I like words you see – and as a consumer, I’m hard to please
• The ‘it must be there somewhere’ websites where it’s just very difficult to find out what I want to know. Thank goodness for online forums and blogs and all the experts who are better at giving me the information I need than the actual companies – this seems to apply especially to big technical companies, but also applies to small business too (WOEFUL!)

The rest of the series on avoiding woeful websites is ‘in production’. What would you like to see added? Tell me below.

I’ve just written an article explaining the DAGMAR Advertising Model.

I can’t be the only person who regularly hears “advertising doesn’t work” or “advertising is really expensive – it’s only for big companies” and I always wonder just how much planning has gone into previous advertising campaigns. It’s more likely that a sales agent for a newspaper or magazine has offered advertising space and the offer was taken up without planning how to make the most of it – and very importantly, without thinking about how to measure the effectiveness of the advert.

DAGMAR helps us understand what we need to do to get the best from advertising (at a business level not at a creative level).

Do tell me what you think about the DAGMAR Advertising Model?   and do comment below and tell me what other articles you’d like to read…

It’s snowing in Sussex today – a lot!

As with everything in life we can choose how to react and we really should choose carefully as we can influence others without meaning to…

…so BBC Breakfast stop naming the worst-affected parts of the UK and let’s start naming the best-affected parts. Oh OK then the most-affected will do too.

Let’s face it, the snow is really really pretty and it doesn’t snow so much very often down here, so why can’t we enjoy it and see it as a positive.

I’m with Angie Martin on this who lists some of the benefits of and Power of Positive Thinking in her blog.

Just written an article explaining the AIDA Marketing Model.

AIDA is

• Attention
• Interest
• Desire 
• Action

- and remembering AIDA when planning an email marketing campaign could improve the likelihood of emails being opened and read by customers.

The element I see missing most often when working with small business, usually in their email marketing and autoresponder campaigns, is the A – Action. Always include a call to action in marketing materials to help improve response rates.

Do tell me what you think of my article on AIDA - leave a comment below.