Tell your own story. It will resonate

It’s easy to under-estimate what we have to offer, not to give ourselves full credit. I was talking to a friend this week who has been out of the workforce for a while and has doubts about offering enough. All of us have more than enough to offer, it’s a matter of creating our own story. Here is a story Be Passionate in Creating Your Own Story that I wrote for the PRIA November newsletter.
Tell the story about yourself that deep down, were all the insecurities wiped away, you know to be true. Sometimes we don’t put our stories together very well. Imagine yourself as a storyteller and tell your story passionately and authentically. Your story will unfold. It will resonate.

Business card harvesting the ugly side of networking. Look to stars instead

I have to go and get more cards, a woman, said to me at a networking event recently. Her aim was to collect as many cards and give her card out to as many people as possible. It makes me wonder if people wallpaper their offices with all these cards…..
Another woman, same event, said she collects perhaps six business cards. She might only talk to a handful of people at an event. Yet she was responsible for bringing 15 people to the event.
I met that woman at an earlier networking event, and we had a great rapport and have worked together ever since. Part of me dislikes networking events, and the thought that some people only want to talk to you because they believe they can sell something to you. Part of me likes these events because you meet people who are working hard
at their businesses, and when you work alone, it’s good to go out and interact. Sometimes you meet people with whom you will never do business because you don’t need their product and they don’t need yours but you can share experiences and perspectives that may help you see things in different ways.
I attended an event early in the year and chatted to a very friendly, and funny woman. She followed up with an email the next day. A couple of weeks later a timeshare sales representative called me and said my friend had recommended me. My friend was the funny and friendly woman I had met once. It’s no way to win friends or business. and I exchange cards only after rapport is established. And sometimes it’s OK not to exchange cards and just have a conversation in the moment.
There’s an event for businesswoman I attend once a month, and I never pick up business from it, even when I was the guest speaker. Last time the guest speaker spoke about astrology for business, and the serious ex-Financial Times and Australian Financial Review part of me was sceptical beforehand, thinking what a load of mumbo-jumbo this will be, and yet personally I’m not sceptical about tarot cards and readings, and indulge occasionally. I have also been known to read this and this. The woman made a chart for the network, and it highlighted the strengths of the group that many of us had sensed enough to keep on returning in spite of not harvesting clients. It also looked at the group within the context of what’s happening in the wider world. There are forces in the world that while not excusing us from hard work, help us to see that it’s not just us, but there is a mood. Sometimes we can’t tell if it’s us that’s going a little mad or events out there beyond our control. I have interviewed the business astrologer and will be writing more about it soon. It was fascinating, and I left the networking breakfast after her talk with a clear sense of why I was there. The group offers a place of support where not only business cards, but skills, knowledge and support are harvested.

@LEIGHSALES doesn’t follow my Tweets #media140

Interesting to hear @LEIGHSALES take on her life on Twitter at Media 140 in Sydney watched via online stream.

If in doubt leave out is her policy. Mine too, an affliction picked up over 15 years on the staff of the Financial Times where they liked to verify, rather than risk a mistake. Of course mistakes happened, such as saying South Korea was joining NATO, or that Mexican currency had devalued by 10 times more than it had. But for me the if in doubt leave out affects my postings on Twitter and my blog, and even my commenting, and in social media one has to break out of that particularly if you’ve not got a media outlet to fly your flag from.

I was fascinated by @LEIGHSALES ruminations on her brand and tone on Twitter. Journalists’ names and reputations are a brand. Yes, like Sales said, there are expectations if you are employed by a major outlet. But it’s equally important, if not more so, for the many of us not stabled with the big newspapers or broadcasters. What happens at News Limited or Fairfax has become increasingly irrelevant to many of us. Up til six months ago I earned my bread & butter (well not so much butter) from those outlets. Like many others at, and listening to, #media140 I am trying to figure the way forward. And now, and as at the past three Freelance Conventions, and the Future of Journalism, and any number of talks with the inspiring @MargaretSimons and others, I can see the future, I think, but am not there just yet.

As Sales analysed her tweeting tone and how she selects what she’ll post, I wanted to tweet to @LEIGHSALES, Chill, Leigh, Chill. I think she gets it about right with the tone of her Tweets, blogs, and the mixture of Lateline marketing, and allowing a lighter side. I think with Twitter, the rule to apply is will you be OK with your mum reading it because she probably is. Yes you mum.

@LEIGHSALES doesn’t follow my Tweets and never has. And I am not going to analyse that – it’s a no brainer for the moment, but it could change. I was interested in Sales describing some micro-management of who she follows on Twitter, frequently updating her following and unfollowing of people. This fits in with the advice from Jay Rosen in Friday’s keynote at #media140 to be very selective on people you follow so you can develop your beat but it will take some time to cultivate relationships. It’s like choosing to have fine chocolate rather than trying to have everything that’s going.

P.S. Glad @malcolmturnbull has been made aware that we do notice when people don’t Tweet on their own behalf. Wonders why it took so long.

I want to take on a good new writing project

Today. All writers are not the same. I was sent a link to a talk on TED by Chimamanda Adichie, a novelist. She spoke in a warm and funny way of how she found her authentic cultural voice. She warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding. Many are passionate, determined, talented, driven a little mad by always thinking of things in terms of how they can be written. Many are impoverished, or support their writing in other ways. Many avoid writing at every turn. Every novelist will not be the next J.K Rowling no matter how many times someone jokes about it with them. I don’t want to be. I want to be me. The writer me.
I don’t avoid writing. I am always writing in some capacity. My strategy regarding my work has always been to be diverse, be multi-skilled. I tried for a while to extend that beyond writing. But I am a writer. I’ve found I most want only to write, but within that I can be diverse. That’s why I write fiction, journalism, web content, and help others find their voice or tell their stories. I want to take on a good new writing project, or position, from today. I need a project that’s fairly and adequately remunerated. That way I can give the job my best and take care of my family, and attend to what to what we all need to attend to, cash flow. I’m an individual. Not like any other writer in those easy ways of categorising people. Not the next J.K. Rowling, although my own novels will take off in their own time. But perhaps I am the very individual who can write for you.

Why Celebrity Masterchef is graze only TV

Celebrity Masterchef is on tonight. It’s grazing TV, rather than TV you want to feast on, and then lick the plate. I wander over to the television, have a quick look at who’s on and what they’re making, and then I wander off. Meanwhile I watch River Cottage on ABC and I want to have what Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s having.

The competition lacks spice. As Matt Preston would say, it doesn’t do it for me. It’s got all the parts, but something else is needed to make it special. Sure there is competition, but it’s not in the I-am-going-to-hide-your-highest-grade-saffron nature of the first Masterchef series where these people filled millions of living rooms for weeks. There is no psychological warfare. Three people come in, clang a few pans, overcook one or two parts of the dish, and are all terribly polite, as the judges decide which elements will count more in the final tally. Everyone’s doing their bit for a good cause, for fun. “Yes I want to win,” they say. I don’t doubt it’s hard cooking and plating up in front of a camera, but what would be really interesting would be to see the celebrities holed up together in a Masterchef Celebrity house deciding who’s going to do the washing up. And for their secret weapon dish they could be plotting how they will prepare a Tetsuya-style floating island dessert injected by pipette ( in truth I don’t know how he does it) with bursts of raspberry and chocolate. (Sublime at the moment the taste buds hit the raspberry or chocolate.)

Rate negotiations more feared than death?

A young entrepreneur once asked me my rate, and I worked up the courage to say double what I thought it really was. I was newer to self employment then. He said it was too low, that no one would take me seriously at that rate. “You’re really bad at negotiation,” he said. At the time he was right. So next time we negotiated I quoted the higher rate. “I can’t run to that,” he said.
Are rate discussions up there with fears or public speaking and death?
This week I was asked to quote for a job that needed to be started at once and finished by the end of the week. I call them drop everything jobs. They said they needed guaranteed outcomes, that their client required this of them. I could certainly guarantee what I would do but no one can guarantee what another organisation or person will do. You can only use the strategies that have worked before and that you believe will work this time. I was asked what is your rate? I gave my hourly rate. Oh no, we can’t run to that. “What kind of rate did you have in mind?” I asked. Turned out they wanted to pay the equivalent of two hours at my hourly rate for the whole day.
I thought about it, and decided I could handle the job in two or so hours per day, and quoted my hourly rate, and said I would give two hours each day. Then it’s up to me to do that and if I go over that time, it’s my problem. I have a resistance to other people determining my hourly rate.

I once had a meeting with a publicist and their client about ghostwriting books and columns for the client who by his own admission was not naturally a writer. I went away to work out the numbers. When we talked again, the publicist said she’d had Sunday lunch with a columnist friend who had told them what a writer should charge. It was big job that would have consumed much of my working life and was going to build a lucrative platform for the client. However, in effect, over their sauvignon blanc others were judging what I should earn. I have a resistance to people saying I should expect to earn $mallbuck$ while they set a fee on their own work of BIGBUCK$$$$$.

At a meeting recently I was asked if I charge different rates for different tasks. No, I said. If the task is easy it won’t take me long. Not only that, if I am busy doing a task for which I am being paid 50 cents, I can’t be doing the $1 task. I value all of my time at the same rate except…

….when I mentor. I set aside a small portion of time for that, and my rate is a standard mentoring rate that is far lower than my hourly rate. I also give one off mentoring where I see an opportunity to help someone. But I attach another kind of value to that.

Recently I set out a fee schedule for my business. It was really helpful in helping me to set a value on my time and skills. Of course it doesn’t mean that all negotiations run smoothly but it means that I can see what path I am on, and I can take into account variations in complexity.
The tricky part is in how we measure the experience we bring to a project. People tend to see only what’s on the menu and forget that it takes a whole lot of preparation, research, study and practice to deliver anything. People know that about themselves but often forget it about others.

The main thing is not to attach emotion to negotiation. And it helps to remember that when services are by necessity bespoke the business model doesn’t get much of a chance to get worked out. The best thing is to enjoy the challenge of figuring it out, and then revel in the project.

The fun of event blogging

I returned last week from blogging the Byron Bay Writers Festival, one of Australia’s leading and most loved literary festivals. The festival would not be possible without a team of more than 160 volunteers, and the blogger is one too, and a member of the brilliant Northern Rivers Writers Centre that stages the festival. So why would I give up a week or more of time when I could be earning money?
Love. I love listening to authors telling the stories behind their work. Every year I come away with a huge list of books to read. I’ve already read about nine books by authors that appeared at the festival. And the other great thing for me, as someone working towards being an author, is that the festival offers a brilliant opportunity to learn about technique, style, voice, as well as finding out what’s selling now, and likely to sell in the future. Then there’s the chance to catch up with and meet new publishing contacts in a really relaxed setting. publishing. But most of all I love to write, and the blog offers a space to write about authors, and books, and their personal stories in a spontaneous way.
It’s a bit different blogging an event that takes place in marquees, where people tend to respectfully turn off their mobiles, than sitting in a highly wired city festival or city meet. With some events you want minute by minute coverage and with others, it’s good to set down a kind of archive of the event of the event, leaving posts to be found, over time. I plan to keep adding to the Byron Bay Writers Festival blog, in a relaxed fashion for a bit longer but now I am mostly back at my desk, and ready to take on a couple of new writing projects – that could include any of journalism, profile writing, copywriting, content creation for websites, tweeting, and social networking sites, speechwriting, or creative writing for commercial or community purposes. I can never predict what project will come along which is the fun of it.

Take panoramic view and shift markets

In the Export Finance And Insurance Corporation Global Readiness Survey published earlier this year it was highlighted that the main concern for most exporters is accessing finance, not today but in six months or year. I think a lot of domestic business owners thought the same thing. The other concern is inadequate understanding of market, the survey said. Although the climate isn’t as amenable or as inviting as it was 18 months ago, Angus Armour managing director and CEO, who I interviewed for an Australian Financial Review said, it doesn’t mean that every opportunity has vanished.

In the EFIC survey a third of the respondents said one of the ways they’re responding to this crisis is to shift market. It seems to be a strategy that many have to consider in these times.

One small TV, one giant group of children

That’s how I remember Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon. Everyone from the assembled in a big room with a concrete floor on a winter’s day to watch something on a black & white TV that changed us all.
In 1999 I saw the Moon eclipse the Sun in northern France. It was the most extraordinary thing to see the darkness approaching from the west, and the street lights go off in the villages on the far hills.

If I Were In Charge Of The Sea World

Sea World on the Gold Coast announced that packed and cut lunches are no longer allowed except for those with special dietary needs, and school excursion groups. It seems to me there may be an influx of people visiting the theme park with food allergies. “But Mum, I’m not allergic to nuts,” says the child at the Sea World gate. “Hush kid,” says the cash-strapped Dad. My daughter visited Sea World recently on an excursion and loved it. And I’ve thought about taking her again myself but it’s one of those optional extras, and we also like to go to the beach (well me more so than her) and see what what we can see in the sea.
If I were in charge of the Sea World PR and Marketing I’d be wanting to be sending a message to parents to keep coming back. Bring a picnic if you like. And I might, or I might not. But knowing that I could make me feel better about the place.
(Then if I were Sea World’s management, I’d station lovely picnic spaces right near cute little cafes or cabins because almost everyone forgets something in their lunch and even mums like an ice cream). I’d be saying bring a picnic because then people who live in proximity to the park would be more likely to buy a season pass, and visit the park many times, each time spending something. But most of all, Sea World would not lose the goodwill of the people who live in the region, and for whom Sea World is an optional spend rather than an essential.

Yes, Universal Studios in LA have the no-food policy, and other theme parks here but these policies were more than likely conceived in a different economic climate. And the Gold Coast is not as big as LA, or tinsel town. Anyway, that’s how I sea (sic) it.