Clearing Out

I spent yesterday in Nottingham at a clients house helping her prepare for 2 interviews she has this next week.

She wanted to focus on her image and we spent time rummaging through her wardrobe with her trying on various outfits until we settled on the "right look" for the jobs in question given the different businesses.

I offered to help her tidy up the mayhem when we had finished and she said she was going to take the opportunity to have a good wardrobe clear out and for me to leave it.

This week I have been trying to make some space in my office and as a result each day I have been trying to do an hours clear out - the result is an overflowing shredding pile and a heaving recycle bin.

What am I left with - a really nice feeling... clearing out is just soooooooo therapeutic. I keep opening the door of my office just to have a little peek at how lovely it looks!

Phew!

Where did all that time go....last entry in May!

I read recently that it is the time in between the activity that should be used to reflect and enjoy what you have been doing. Life has been so frantic through the summer and the early part of the autumn that I'm hoping to get some space to reflect soon!

Time

I had arranged to meet a man who was a farmer, and I was a bit late leaving as some friends arrived just as I was preparing to go out.

I dashed there and then couldn't find the farm and had to stop and ask the way.

When I got there I apologised for being late and explained what had happened.

He looked me in the eye and said in a kind tone "you are only a few moments late, and there are always some more moments to follow the ones that have just gone so I shouldn't worry".

His timing was relaxed while I was in my usual hurry up mode of operation!

Times Creme Show

Had a really good (albeit baking hot) day in London yesterday at Olympia. Myself and the First Impressions team manned a large stand for the Times Creme Show.

The place was absolutely heaving with people and we worked flat out delivering short mini consultations on the stand, with four running consecutively throughout the day, it was quite a logistical feat. As early as mid morning we were fully booked.

The sessions were on colour confidence, style secrets and wardrobe wisdom.

Learning....it's an age thing.

A client explained to me this week, that people think that the older you get that you don’t have anything more to learn, but indeed you do still have more to learn, you just keep on learning all the time, it never stops.

When I got home one night this week my husband told me that my mother had started painting. I visualised my mother sitting in the garden with an easel and watercolours – that was quite an amazing vision!

It transpired it wasn’t watercolours that she had taken up, it was emulsion! She has for the first time this week, in her 78 years, held a paint brush in her hand and emulsioned the conservatory, and whilst I realise there are more windows than walls in that room it is still pretty amazing. No remarkable actually.

My mother had learnt how to paint a wall, when I recalled I had never, ever seen her do that before.

What have you learnt this week?

April.....and who is the fool?

On Monday I travelled to Edinburgh to deliver an in house presentation skills programme, it should have happened in December but the organisation is going through major restructure and reorganisation and so it was delayed. On the eve of the programme I found out that a lot of the delegates who had been due to attend were involved in assessment centres as people were reapplying for their roles. I did reflect on this and felt how disorganised and foolish it was of this organisation to rearrange for this date.

Despite these reservations the programme went incredibly well and the delegates all personally thanked me for their time and reiterated how useful they had found it.

I left Edinburgh by train and settled down to do some work, at Berwick on Tweed we were informed that a plastic bag had attached itself to the trains electric connection and we would have to wait for an engineer to arrive to remove it – deep joy!

After 50 minutes we were advised that a cross country Virgin train due in 5 minutes could take us as far as Newcastle. I pondered what to do, and decided to get off and go on this one. Yet a National Express train pulled in and delight of delight the destinations on the side of the train included Peterborough.

There was nearly a riot on the platform when the train failed to open its doors and simply went on its way – it was the hour later train travelling out of Edinburgh.

So I got back on the original train to wait it out, only to hear that the Virgin train would be coming and that an engineer was coming from Morpeth hence the long delay. At that moment the Virgin train pulled in to the next platform so I grabbed my things and ran.

It was only when I went to put my suitcase into the storage area that I realised I had left the case in the storage area on the original train. I squealed in panic and ran to the doors to get out – only to find that they had already shut. Frantically pressing the open doors button did nothing.

So who was disorganised and foolish now?

What happened? Lady luck was looking down on me….I got off the train at Newcastle, crossed platforms, waited another 15 minutes and was reunited with my suitcase, I was back on my original delayed train.

What day was it? 1st of April!

View Of The World

I peeped round the corner of the curtain and was absolutely delighted that I could, for the first morning out of 3, see to the bottom of my garden. My delight was due to the fact that I was driving all the way to Ipswich that morning.

When I crossed the A1 onto the A14 it was as if that same curtain had been pulled down instantly. I hit a wall of dense, thick, freezing fog. A little further on and it cleared, by the time it got daylight I experienced periods of dazzling beautiful sunshine followed by periods of seeing nothing, apart from swirling mist and fog.

The result was that I spent most of my journey alternating between glasses and sunglasses as I bobbed my way along to my destination.

Disaster struck when I got out of the car in Ipswich – in my ease to swop over glasses so often I decided to leave them on my lap. I had left them on my lap and they promptly fell to the floor – one of the lenses came out and the clear wire holding the lens had snapped. I fumbled around and found the lens.

My delegates thought it highly amusing, I thought myself highly resourceful to stick the lens back in with Blue tak. I was nicknamed Jack D for the remainder of the day!

Each day I kept trying to get to get to the opticians but it didn’t happen. Yet Monday gave me a perfect solution to my glasses situation. A learning event had been organised with some fellow image consultants to allow us to do some personal shopping for each other. The aim was to get some feedback on our own skills as well as to put ourself in our clients shoes and experience what they may feel when someone shops for you.

And so the bemused sales assistant in the opticians watched as four image consultants wandered along the racks picking out glasses and passing them to me to try on. When they had nailed it down to the final four, I rotated them all on and off my nose quickly so they could gauge and judge the best pair.

The good news was that it was a unanimous decision as to which ones to purchase. The bad news is that I have parted with over £200 but can’t really remember what they looked like. Oh well a surprise awaits me when they arrive in the post.

My colleagues followed a rigorous process of analysing - face shape, colours, tones, textures and styles. They gave me their reasons for rejecting some of the glasses. Yet it was all done at such a break neck speed I was left whirling.

We all, I think, experienced trying things on that we would not normally of looked at or chosen, one colleague was very adamant that she was not going to try a gold dress on that we all agreed (except her) was perfect for her.

So the learning from the day – we have a tendency to stick with the things that we know and we like, it’s good to have the boundaries pushed a bit. It’s also very easy for us to work at a pace, yet if we slow down a little we may help ourselves. So a day of good learning for all of us.

Can you put yourself in your client’s shoes - what are they experiencing – what’s their view of the world?

Inspiration

I've been reading a book all about PR. It's something that I perceive is quite mystical and yet now half way through my reading I've found out that most of it is just plain common sense and nothing more.

It's fair to say that I absolutely hate the thought of marketing my business and after years of telling myself I really should be doing it and beating myself up over the head for not doing it - I realise that I just need to do it in my own low key way rather than shouting from the rafters about People Potential.

This hate of marketing I think comes from childhood (as do most things!), I don't ever remember being told by my parents or anyone else not to boast about what I had, where I went on holiday etc. Yet, I do remember a deep sense that it was incredibly rude to talk about all the things you had and even more so to people who didn't have as much as you. The key word was boast - so I never have, and whilst a lot of people would say marketing isn't about boasting, it does have an element to it.

I was watching the fabulous film Billy Elliot (not sure if that should be two t's) with my friend recently, she grew up in the north east of England in the 70's and her father was a miner. She described to me what it had been like living through the miners strike and how very similar it was to the film. She remembered the Christmas of the strike and how she got a quarter of the presents she usually got and whilst she was incredibly disappointed on Christmas morning, she somehow instinctively knew (a bit like me - not that anyone had ever told her) that she must smile and be really excited about the presents she had got, even though what she had wanted for Christmas was not under the tree.

In the PR book there is quite a lot of advice in there that I give to my clients who are looking for a job - get networking, organise yourself, have a plan. I guess promoting a business and promoting yourself have an awful lot of similarities.

One idea that did catch my attention is the suggestion of having an inspiration box (this can be literally that, or a space in your filing cabinet or even an old tatty carrier bag). The main thing is that it is a recepticle for you to put things in.

The inspiration box is to collect any piece of marking or PR that you come across that makes you think twice about the product or service that is advertised.

I use a similar exercise where people cut out and keep job adverts that sparkle to them - this may be the organisation, even a specfic word in the ad, the location etc, it doesn't necessarily need to be the job itself.

The inspiration box is to be used when you feel uninspired about doing your marketing. Its there to give you a kick start and help you focus on what you are offering.

Similarly the job advert exercise is there to help a client get clarity on exactly what they are looking for.

The concept of the inspiration box could be extended - maybe you just put things in there that inspire you, or maybe you put keepsakes and things you would like to remember in there. I guess the list is limitless.

What would you put in the box if you had one?

Biz, yet varied week.

I've been working in London a bit over the last week, firstly delivering an Impact & Influence Workshop (we covered Belbin's team roles and amazingly there were 2 Plants in the group, I've only ever had one other Plant in all my time of using the Belbin model), amazing.

One of the things that I love so much about my job is the variety and also the opportunity to meet so many people who are all so very different. I met a lovely Greek gentleman on the Impact & Influence workshop, he has lived in the UK for 6 years and described how crazy he finds us all. "Always rushing and running, working so hard that we never seem to have any time to just be".

Then I've been down in Heathrow for most of this week delivering Equality and Diversity workshops. So the latter I had to stay away from home for. It's always a challenge for both me and the delegates when they have to attend mandatory training. On this occasion it was so their organisation was legally compliant. We had a lot of laughter during the days and nearly everyone admitted at the close that they hadn't wanted to be there but in actual fact they'd quite enjoyed themselves and even learnt something along the way - whatever next!

For some reason I never really look forward to being away, the hotel although under the flight path was good. I had an interesting time as for some reason I was located the disabled room, it was so huge we could have held the training in there and still had space! The bathroom was even more spacious, however, having such a low basin was a tad annoying.

The lovely thing though about being away is that you come home, and somehow it seems all the more lovely for being away.

Last night I went late night shopping with my friends 13 year old son - now I shop with a lot of people (male, female, transvestites, gender change, old, young, senior executives), but I've never shopped with someone quite as decisive as he was. He seemed to instantly know yes or no - whether something was right or not, and he also managed to quantify why something was wrong or right "too pink", "too many buttons" etc.

We're all going to a wedding next month and as his birthday is so close to Christmas I suggested he have something new to wear to the wedding as his combined presents. Which he was delighted about but felt I needed to go with him to look.

When I picked him up I suppose I went into image coaching mode and suggested we look at his wardrobe to see what he already had so we knew what we might buy that would go with the things he already had.

We hit lucky in the first shop we went in with a snazzy waistcoat with lovely silver lining on the back, we both agreed that the matching trousers were a little boring. We then moved onto the next shop he literally ran and grabbed a pin striped waist coat and matching trousers off the rack and even agreed to try on a previously refused pink shirt with it, and wait for it.... a pink tie!

Maybe because he never has to dress up that smart he looked even more amazing. As he came out of the changing room he literally strutted up to the mirror at the end like a peacock! He twirled, looked at his rear and turned to me with a huge beam.

Suffice to say the whole ensemble was purchased. He had to put it on when we got home and I think the challenge may be getting it off and keeping it off his back before the wedding in 3 weeks time, I suspect he probably had his breakfast in it this morning.

There's nothing quite like finding an outfit that you just love to bits, and the feeling inside that you just feel fantastic in it from top to toe, the feeling seems to just radiate out of you - a bit like a Ready Brek glow!

Belinda

"January - sick and tired, you've been hanging on me"

I scrounged a lift to the train station and back with my neighbour last week, (which worked out really well, as the lines were all down at Finsbury Park on the way back, so I had someone to chat to as we stood for what seemed like hours at Kings Cross waiting for a sight of a train, and then more hours stood up in the gang way on the train all the way back home).

Anyhow, he described how he really didn't like this time of year, and how people all seemed to be feeling a bit flat after all the Christmas and New Year festivities.

I totally disagreed with him, whilst January wouldn't go down as my favourite month (that's May), I do like it more than November and December when the whole world seems that bit darker and grey.

I have been watching and counting, (and yes I'm sad I know), but yesterday I observed that it didn't get dark until 4.36 which means although its still a way off spring is coming. By my calculation only 75 days until the clocks go forward!

Belinda

Differences & Similiarities

We spent Christmas in Portugal, which we have done before. However, this year was the first Christmas my cousin had spend abroad and not in the UK. She was regularly heard through the holiday describing what she would have been doing if she had been in the UK compared to what she was actually doing at any specific time ("peeling brussel sprouts" compared to "sitting in my flip flops in the sun"). She really enjoyed the change from the norm and relished the difference.

For the New Year we travelled north to stay with some friends and were fortunate enough to be invited to a Portuguese families home for the new years eve celebrations. Not quite sure what to expect we went along to their farm and were introduced to their family.

We were served a feast of 3 courses. The whole family from small children to grandma and grandad joined together to celebrate. As midnight approached there was much rush to fill every ones glasses with champagne and then we were all told to pick 12 sultanas from the bowl. As midnight struck we were instructed to eat our sultanas and make 12 wishes for the new year ahead.

I had learnt earlier that there was no translation for new years resolutions and so this must be the Portuguese equivalent? Much nicer to have wishes than resolutions I think.

What are your sultana wishes?

Happy New Year.