heartharmony.com.au

The entrepreneur in us sees opportunities everywhere we look, but many people see only problems everywhere they look. The entrepreneur in us is more concerned with discriminating between opportunities than he or she is with failing to see the opportunities

Michael Gerber – Author, entrepreneur

I love quotes from people who have succeeded. Michael Gerber is a true genius when it comes to business. The E-myth and the E-Myth revisited should be essential reading for every entrepreneur.

Do you see opportunities or problems in your business?

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

Heart Harmony

Putting your business into words

It’s school holidays here in Brisbane and today we saw “Get Smart” the movie (great movie by the way – very funny!)

What I particularly liked about it was how they took an old and much loved product and made it fresh for today. There is a lot that small business can take from the strategy. Get Smart obviously borrowed from the New VW launch of a few years back.

Here’s my top 5 lessons from Get Smart:

1. Old doesn’t mean dead – even your oldest products and services still have life in them
2. If you are reintroducing an old product or service – keep the essence of the old … the things that made it unique and loved. Find the things that made your product or service unique and work out ways to weave them into the modern release.
3. Feel free to tweak non-unique parts of your service or product to bring it into the now. Don’t aim for a total remake of the past – make sure the new release matches the needs and interests of present day clients.
4. Cameos from past ads, actors, props or promotions can add a sense of continuity and history.
5. Have fun – don’t take yourself too seriously.

Until next time

Ingrid Cliff

Heart Harmony

Putting your business into words

You may remember that I talked about the Thirty Day Challenge and how it is a great way to learn the latest on the internet to market your business.

One of the things I also love about the challenge is the tools you learn about that boost your productivity. Well this is one of the best they have shared so far in pre-season – Google Reader.

Yes, it comes from Google and is a way you can have all of your blog feeds in the one place. You can also set it up to run all your regular searches about your business niche and feed you back your results as part of your overall list.

How does this save you time? Well instead of manually clicking all over the place to find your regular stuff – everything is on one page. You can just scan the headlines and only dig deeper for things you are really interested in reading. You can keep up with the LinkedIn questions, as well as all your friends on Facebook – all in the one place.

If you read more than one blog a week, then you need Google reader! To understand a bit about what it does take this tour of Google reader .

I used to be a fan of Bloglines to keep on top of all my blogs and research – but Google reader blows it out of the water. And yes it is free!

If you want to see some of the seminars about Google reader from the 30 Day Challenge – here are 4 short seminars to whet your appetite

Installing Google Reader

Using Google Reader

The Google Reader Secret

Google Reader Tips & Tweaks

It is not too late to sign up to the challenge just follow this link to sign up and learn about the latest in internet tools and technology to market your business online.

Ingrid Cliff

Heart Harmony

Putting your business into words

I love stunning landscape photos. This weekend I stumbled across a brilliant Sydney photographer - Jeff Grant .

What I love about Jeff’s work is he sees what many of us see – but in the right light and from the right angle he also sees the magic within it.

This photo was taken at Manly in Sydney. Manly is a thriving urban metropolis on the water and yet Jeff has captured the mystery and magic of some of the rocks by the water’s edge.

Being able to see the magic within is the also the trait of good managers – being able to see the potential within someone that with the right conditions can blossom into something brilliant.

It is also the trait of great copywriters – being able to see the potential in a company and capture the essence of their service or product and present it in a way that highlights its magic to customers.

Each person – photographer, manager, writer all choose their own personal media to work their alchemy – whether it is film, people or words. Yet each is a magician of sorts – seeing through the everyday to the magic within.

Check out the work of Jeff Grant and be inspired for the week to see the hidden potential in things around you.

Ingrid Cliff

Heart Harmony

Putting business into words

It’s that time of year when many businesses start doing their employee performance reviews.

There was an interesting study done by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and the Ethics Resource Centre (ERC). Only 23% of HR professionals surveyed had any form of comprehensive ethics or codes of conduct in place in their organisation and only 43% assessed ethical conduct as part of their employee performance reviews. Since ethical conduct is and should be a “given” in all workplaces this is a bit of a concern.

When you do your employee performance reviews you need to look at not only WHAT a person does but HOW they do it. The most common problems with employees performance are in the HOW category.

I would be so bold as to suggest that most employees who are fired are only fired for how they do their job (their attitude, approach, interactions with others) and not what they actually do.

If you don’t address the how in your performance reviews, if ever you need to discipline or terminate an employee you have no leg to stand on legally before the courts in case of appeal. They rightly can argue they have not been given the opportunity to address these issues.

If you are looking for a simple yet thorough Employee Performance review process – check out our Employee Performance Reviews: Tips, Templates and Tactics e-manual .

It has all of the processes, templates and forms as well as info on dealing with the “hard issues” such as an employee bursting into tears during your review or getting angry. It is a great resource for all managers about to head into Performance Review season!

Ingrid Cliff

Heart Harmony

Putting your business into words

Happy New Financial Year! If you are like many businesses today you are printing off your group certificates for your employees, checking your on-line statements ready to reconcile and making sure you have all of the expenses entered for last financial year.

Last year was a brilliant financial year for Heart Harmony and I am full of gratitude for the great clients who have entrusted their business with us.

We have been getting brilliant results for many of our clients. Just last week one of our clients bumped off the Commonwealth Bank from the number 1 spot in Google searches for their particular keywords (yeha!).

This financial year is promising to be even more exciting.

We have another in the Tips, Templates and Tactics e-book series ready for release in the next few weeks, with another 2 planned for later in the year. We will also have the second edition of the Instant HR Policies and Procedures Manual issued as soon as possible after Parliament passes the legislation listing the major WorkChoices changes.

I look forward to sharing the journey with you.

Ingrid Cliff

Heart Harmony

Putting your business into words