I was driving north to visit my dad last Saturday, listening to the lovely Graham Norton chatting to the even lovelier Alison Moyet about her new album.
It’s called “The Minutes” and her reason for choosing the title really struck a chord with me: “...we all feel slightly cheated when our life does not end up being this stream of joy’, she said, ‘and one thing that you do understand when you become middle aged is that it was never about that...it was always about fantastic minutes that are suspended in years...and that’s what this album is about.”
How true.  It is all about the minutes.
Over the course of my life I can think back to ‘fantastic minutes’ that I failed to recognise as such at the time, but happily I’m also able to look back with real joy on ‘fantastic’ minutes that make me feel great every time I remember them.  I’m sure that you are the same.

In a business context, the importance of minutes has always been clearly stated...although not always acted on.
Time is money is a phrase I grew up with, as my dad worked hard to build his business.
Lean systems, and their forerunner, the time and motion study, have always focused in on the precious minutes which can be cut from an otherwise lengthy operational process or customer service experience.
Many businesses look to create magic moments that will be remembered long after the whole experience has become a faint memory.
We remember minutes.
Planning and process will always help to make the most of these minutes in our business day...the minutes that have the potential to make more money...to save money...or to waste it.  An efficient business will always look after the minutes.
But in a business that wants to grow (as in life in general) it’s the minutes that we can’t plan for that are often the most exciting...bring the greatest opportunity...and usually the most lasting joy and pleasure.  These are the minutes that we often miss, because we’re looking the wrong way, maybe focusing on a month, a year, or maybe even a plan that we made that these minutes just don’t gel with.
In the short life we have, these minutes are precious.
Be ready for them...don’t miss them...because they could be best minutes of your life!

Contact Marianne Page Limited at hello@mariannepage.co.uk

In business and in life, everyone has their own take on the word loyalty.
For those in loving relationships it means ‘true to you til death’, for good friends it means ‘I’ll stand by you even when I could happily punch you’, while for the more emotionally challenged, it’s a case of quid pro quo...’I’ll be loyal to you just so long as I believe you’re loyal to me!’  It’s the way of the world...we judge people all the time by their capacity to be loyal to us.
It’s the same in business...only over there the laws of loyalty have got all screwed up, by companies so desperate to make money and stay afloat that they forget the way loyalty works.
Just think how many times you have heard complaints about a business who spends more  time, more focus and more money on winning new clients...often by giving them the best deals...rather than giving their existing customers the best experience possible, winning a lifetime of loyalty and maybe even a bunch of very vocal advocates!
Or the employer who expects ultimate loyalty from their people, simply because they pay them, but doesn’t have a process for development, performance management or recognition.
Loyalty is not something you can buy.  Yes, loyalty schemes are a nice value add that customers enjoy...but they very soon become a standard expectation and can lead to dissatisfaction if they are removed or compare badly to competitors’ schemes.  These programmes won’t grow your business in the long-term.
In my view, the only way to earn a lifetime of customer loyalty and a healthy dose of employee loyalty, is to give them both a great experience!




For your people that means hiring only those who fit your culture and values, building their skills and confidence through your development system; challenging them through your performance management system, and rewarding them for their contribution to the growth of your business through your recognition system.  Do this and your people will love you, and stay loyal to you, long after they have left you.
For your customers it means having a great product, and a great team who understand that they are there to provide solutions to your customers’ problems, and who do that consistently well.  That’s what makes a business stand out.  That’s what engenders customer loyalty.
To grow any business, you have to have a loyal base of customers, a high performing team, and a great product.  Get all three of these together and the sky’s the limit!
But that’s just my view...what’s yours?  When you think of the friends and the brands you are loyal to...what qualities and values stand out for you...how have they earned your loyalty?  Something to chew on over the weekend...  :)

Contact Marianne Page Limited at hello@mariannepage.co.uk

I’m sitting here with a stinking cold, having just found out that my poor old dad has pneumonia, writing a blog about vitality!  The irony is not lost on me.
It’s an interesting word though ‘vital’ and one which we use and abuse with gay abandon on a regular basis, due to the various meanings the English language has assigned to it.
Vital...from the Latin word Vita meaning life
Vital (adj) = indispensable, essential, needed, of the utmost importance
Vital (adj) = life-sustaining, fundamental, basic
Vital (adj) = lively, energetic, exuberant, sprightly
Vitality (noun) = the state of being strong and active...zest, irreplaceable lifeforce, passion
In a work or business sense we all like to think of ourselves as vital ....in that we are, of course, indispensable.  Some of us also like to think of ourselves as vital in the sense of being lively, energetic, or my particular favourite...sprightly!
The truth is though, that if we want to continue to be vital...in any sense of the word...if we want to maintain our vitality...we have to accept the need to recharge and refresh every now and again, and spend quality time away from those things, and sometimes those people, who drain it.
A good old fashioned two (or ideally three) week holiday is the only proper way to do this.

Let’s face it, as a business owner you could be working from 6am right through to 1am...every single day if you wanted to...it would literally never stop.  You could easily burn yourself out to such an extent that you lose your spark, lose your ability to think straight, to be effective, to make the right decisions.  I’m sure we’ve all been in that position many times...when you just know that you’re ready for a holiday...and yet how many of us go ahead and take one?  And I mean really take one.  Switch off the blackberry, leave the laptop at home, fully delegate authority for decisions until you return?
By believing that you are too vital to take holidays you slowly but surely lose your vitality...you have no spark, no energy, no exuberance...you are no longer the irreplaceable lifeforce that your business needs.
And of course it’s vital that you maintain and look after that irreplaceable lifeforce.
Plan your holidays at the start of the year, put them on a planner in permanent marker, book them and pay for them in advance...because the truth is that there will always be something that needs to be done...something that only you can do...a reason for not going away.  The business world never stops, particularly not if it’s your business, but even when you’re working for somebody else, they’ll work you 24-7 if they can and they’re not going to want to lose their best employee...even for a couple of weeks!
The magical thing you’ll discover about holidays, is that in the few weeks leading up to you going away, you experience a ‘burst of meaningful productivity’ in which you get all of the important things done.  You meet the people you need to meet, you clear the projects with deadlines looming, you get the decisions made that need to be made.  Magic happens in those few weeks!
And it doesn’t stop there.
On holiday you’re going to have the best ideas you’ve had in a long time.  You’re going to move into a part of your mind that’s free-thinking, that’s expansive, and that give you dynamic exciting visions of what you’re going to do in the world.  They won’t happen in the day to day...they happen when you’re on holiday.
You’re also going to meet very different people and have very different conversations.  You’ll be on a rickety old bus winding your way through the mountains miles from anywhere, and you’ll find yourself sitting beside the next door neighbour of someone who you’ve been wanting to do business with for the past twelve months.  These sort of remarkable things happen all the time..when people take the time to take a holiday.

Your vitality is essential for your business...you at your exuberant, energetic, passionate best is exactly what it needs.  Take the time to rest and recharge.  Take it regularly. Go on holidays that thrill and inspire you.
Be the irreplaceable lifeforce that you know you truly are!

Contact Marianne Page Limited at hello@mariannepage.co.uk

I’ve been thinking a lot about desire this week...what it means to different people...how it affects the way you behave...what you feel and think...how you act.  The dictionary defines it as ‘A strong feeling of wanting to have something or wishing for something to happen’.  I think of it as so much more than ‘wishing’...for me, desire is much more active...it’s about wanting something so badly that you are prepared to really put yourself out there to make certain that you ‘achieve’ the object of your desire.

Basketball coach, Liv Profitt sums it up perfectly for me in this motivational speech to his team.  The video’s pretty motivational too, if you can’t be bothered to read the text! :)

“There was a young man and he wanted to make a lot of money and so he went to this guru...and he said ‘I want to be on the same level you are’ and the guru said, ‘ok, if you really want to be on the same level I am, I’ll meet you tomorrow at the beach.’  The young guy said ‘I like the beach, but I wanna make money, I don’t wanna swim!’

But the guru said, ‘Be at the beach at 4am.’ So the young man got there at 4 am, ready to rock n roll...got on a suit, should’ve worn shorts... The old man grabs his hand and says, ‘how badly do you want to be successful?’  He says, ‘real bad’.

‘Walk on out into the water”...so he walks out into the water, and when he walks out into the water he goes waist deep, and he’s like ...‘I’m dreaming of making money, n he’s got me out here swimming...I didn’t ask to be a life guard...I wanna make money!’

‘Walk out a little further’...so he walks out until the water is lapping around his shoulders and he’s thinking, ‘this old man’s crazy...he’s making money, but he’s crazy’.

‘Come out a little further’.  He walks out a little further till the water’s lapping in his mouth, and he’s thinking, ‘i’m gonna have to go back in...this guy is out of his mind’

So the guru says, ‘I thought you said you wanted to be successful..?’ He says ‘I do!’, so he makes him walk a little further till the water’s over his head and dunks the young man’s head under the water and holds him down.  Holds him down until he’s just about to pass out and then he drags him up.

He says, I’ve got a question for you...‘When you were underwater, what did you want to do?’  The young man says, ‘I wanted to breathe’

And the guru tells him...‘when you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, then you’ll be successful’

If anyone has had asthma they’ll know what it’s like when you have an attack...you’re fighting for breath...wheezing...gasping for air...the only thing you wanna do is breathe.  You don’t care about no basketball game, you don’t care what’s on the tv, or who’s calling you on the phone..the only thing you care about when you’re trying to breathe is to get some fresh air...that’s it.

And when you get to the point when all you want to do is be successful as bad as you wanna breathe...then you’ll be successful.

And I’m here to tell you that most of you say you wanna be successful, but you don’t want it bad...you just kinda want it.  You don’t want it badder than you wanna party...you don’t want it as much as you wanna be cool...hell, most of you don’t want success as much as you wanna sleep!  If you wanna be successful then you gotta be willing to give up sleep...cos if you go to sleep you might miss the opportunity to be successful.  That’s how bad you gotta want it.  Don’t go to sleep until you succeed!”

When you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, then you’ll be successful
So, here’s the question...what is it you desire as much as you want to breathe?  And what are you doing about it?  Do you ‘kinda want it’...or are you doing whatever it takes to achieve your burning desire?
Contact Marianne Page Limited at hello@mariannepage.co.uk

I’ve been around a lot of entrepreneurs in the past twelve months, and for every one of them the growth and scaleability of their business is pretty close to top of mind.  Thoughts turn to funding, to adding staff and improving leadership skills, maybe to product creation, and while these are all important considerations for any successful business, what is often missed is the need to create the systems which will form the platform for growth.
While it is true that many small businesses are run instinctively, with a small team who simply ‘make things happen’ maybe because they have been there from the start, this modus operandi will ultimately fall short as new employees are brought in to deal with new business.
So it makes sense to start thinking along the lines of how you might set up your business as a virtual ‘franchise’, very early in its life, if not from day one.  By that I mean, think of how you might replicate what you do in another town, or another country...what would you need to have in place to make sure everything was consistent no matter where that second or third franchise was?
Here are five strategies to help you.  Put these into practice and you will not only ease the inevitable growing pains, but also keep your operation running smoothly, and maintain a consistently great experience for your customers.

1. Start as you mean to go on. In the early days of business, there are many things to juggle just to keep things running day to day, and any free time is often spent in learning the ropes.  Investing time in documenting your process and systems in these early stages may seem like a chore too far, but taking time to think about the steps and procedures in your business now, will save you a whole heap of pain later.
2. Take notes.  In this digital age there are so many quick and easy ways to make a note of your thoughts - recording them for later review is probably the easiest, but there are a number of other ways to jot down your thoughts, including of course, the good old-fashioned pen and notepad.  Taking careful notes on the day-to-day processes, from how files are saved to how big decisions are made, and asking your team if you have one to do likewise, will make it much easier to document your processes to train new staff when the time comes.
3. Imagine if... Be proactive in identifying potential issues and methodically create solutions and a system for responding to each. Spend time thinking through anything that could possibly go wrong, work with your team to do this if you have one, so that if and when a situation occurs both you and your team are ready to deal with it quickly and effectively.
4. Remember your values.  Documenting your story - the reason why you started your business, your values, your goals - should also be done now.  They will act as a great reminder to you and your existing team of why you are in business, and also give any new team members a feel for the culture of the business they are joining. 
5. Don’t forget the new stuff. Once you’ve documented all of your procedures, had someone review the material for clarity and simplicity, and shared the documents with your team, both old and new, then you can relax...yes?    Well no sadly, updating of procedures as they evolve, and adding new procedures for a new product say, should be regularly on your list of things to do.  And of course, the ongoing training of your team never stops!
   

The first few years of a business are exciting and filled with opportunity, but they can also be stressful and at times a little chaotic, with many a business owner feeling like they have no time and even less control.  By investing time early in building a solid foundation of systems and procedures, you give yourself the chance to take full advantage of the opportunities that come your way, and you may be able to sleep just that little bit better at night, knowing that you are prepared for whatever comes.