I’ve decided I don’t like Peacocks!  Not the birds, you understand, but the preening, self-congratulatory, loud individuals who can usually be found selling themselves as gurus and mentors - and giving those who actually are, a bad name. 

‘Ooh, look at my flash motor’, ‘Look at my fabulous house’, ‘Don’t you think I look just Gorgeous in my fancy outfit?’  - ‘Follow me and you too can have this extravagant lifestyle…’

They charge a lot of money too (to pay for their extravagant lifestyle), and they often attract those people who want to boast about how much they are paying to be ‘mentored’, because they believe that automatically means they can raise their prices to similar levels.

You know the sort of people I’m talking about.  You may have even worked with one or two of them before.

And the thing is, they may actually have good information to impart, even if it is often a re-hash of a re-hash of other people’s work.  But for me, and it is just my opinion, the really good stuff is hidden behind the complete lack of emotional intelligence, or any authentic rapport.  I just can’t buy into this type of person - I’d rather stick pins in my eyes.

I do completely get the need for a business mentor though - someone who has credibility and influence, and the contacts you don’t yet have.  Someone who’s had the triumphs and disasters, and has the scars to prove it.  Someone who’ll inspire you and challenge you, and give you a kick when it’s needed.

An eagle, or maybe an owl, when compared to the preening peacock.

I have a few mentors. 

In fact, last week I was called a Groupie, because I’d been seen so often in one particular mentor’s company.  I think it was meant as an insult.  After all a Groupie is over-the-top enthusiastic, and completely uncritical - a non-thinking sheep, a blind follower. The peacocks have a lot of these.

But honestly, while I’d prefer the title friend, or even mentee, I’m ok with being called a Groupie of this guy, however far from the truth it is. 

Why?  Because for me, Daniel Priestley is everything a mentor should be.

• He’s super smart - able to cut to the nub of a business issue, and explain it with absolute clarity.
• He’s inspiring - but not by showcasing his wealth and promising you similar riches, far from it.  Instead he looks for the potential greatness in the individual, shows them it, and then supports them in achieving it.
• He believes in himself totally - but yet has a more than healthy dose of humility.
• He’s a thought-leader - with original views and perspectives on global as well as business issues.
• He’s creative - and fun to be around.
• He sells stuff - and does it very well - but there’s never any pressure to buy, never a hint of desperation to sell.  It’s elegant, and authentic. A model to copy.
• He is a key person of influence - and because he has worked hard to become one, he attracts business and other influencers to him.  Even Richard Branson has added him to the list of only 3800 people he follows on Twitter!
• He’s very definitely one of the good guys.  Another of a similar stamp is James Lavers.  Just all-round good guys.  If you've ever met either of them, you know exactly what I mean.  

So here’s a question:  Are you following a peacock, or are you learning from your eagle mentor how to lead - how to sore above the crowd?

I dallied with a few peacocks before I found my eagle.  It's easy to be attracted to the bright, colourful plumage, to be drawn to the shiny things they want to sell you; to be seduced by their dance and forget to look up to where the eagles are soaring.

Just ask yourself: Do you share their values? Do you aspire to follow their route to success, or do you want what they have, despite the road they're telling you to take?  Do they make you feel good about yourself or is it all about them?

At the end of the day, it's all a matter of personal perspective, and we all have to make our own choices.
Good luck in making the right one for you.


For more information on how MPL can help you visit www.mariannepage.co.uk or contact me on hello@mariannepage.co.uk

I know I'm not alone in being frustrated with a long list of tradesmen who I've called to do various jobs around the house. Carpenters, plumbers, electricians, the jobs may be different, but the outcome is nearly always the same.

The postman may always ring twice, but tradesmen never do.

Occasionally you might get an initial call back, on even rarer occasions you might even get someone to your house to look at the job.  But then they simply disappear, never to be heard from again.

Crazy when you think about it.  Not just turning individual jobs away, but turning away any future opportunity of doing a job for the person who called them.

It got me thinking why this would be. What would cause someone to stifle the long-term future of their business.

1. They're incredibly busy, have more work than they can handle, and prioritise big jobs over little.
Like many solopreneurs (I so hate that term), they are completely overwhelmed; too busy being busy to recognise that those little projects done well, or even turned away with a bit of honest communication, might well turn into big projects, maybe even a lifetime of projects for the same customer.

2. They have no support - no one to share the workload with, no one to take calls, no one to do their admin.
Like many one-man-bands, they don't get that the only way to grow their business sustainably is to have a support team.  People who have your back, who look after your prospective customers, deal with the day to day organisation of running a business, perhaps do some of the project work with you or for you.  An admin person who doubles up as a book keeper, an equally skilled tradesman, an apprentice.  We all need support.

3. They have no systems - just a long list of jobs that have to get done.  Like a hamster on a wheel, there's no real plan, they haven't thought about where they're going, what they want from the business beyond the cash that it brings in, how they can sustain the work they have.

What they really have is a job, and one that probably causes them way more aggravation than a 'proper job' would.

Now of course, I'm generalising.  There are some great tradesmen out there who have built successful businesses, who give great customer service and who communicate really well.  But there are way too many who fit my stereotype.

And here's the real question...do you?

Are you working alone, without support, without systems, too busy being busy to grow a business?
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Do you just have a job?  Something to think about maybe.

For more information on how MPL can help you visit www.mariannepage.co.uk or contact me on hello@mariannepage.co.uk

​I had an interesting conversation with a control freak last week.

He was telling me how he hates to delegate - doesn't trust his employees to do anything without some sort of supervision, because they cock things up, make mistakes, take longer to do the job than he would.

"I check EVERYTHING' he said, 'I don't want my customers to have anything but a perfect service'.

It's the perfect excuse for the control freak...I'm not doing it for me, I'm doing it for my customers.  Drives me nuts.

Here's the thing, for those of you who recognise that you may be borderline, if not full-blown freaks...you're keeping yourself stuck in that rut we talked about last week.

Just like the bind weed in your garden - you know the one with the pretty flower that pretends its trying to make your garden look lovely, while its tentacles set about destroying it...that one! - you're strangling the growth of your people and your business.

You've forgotten that someone let you make mistakes when you were learning, someone gave you room to grow and develop, someone recognised that mistakes are how we all learn.  You've forgotten that all of the successful people you look up to have built their success on a bucketload of failures, and much bigger failures and mistakes than any of your people might make if you gave them their head.

You want to limit mistakes?  Have systems.  Set standards. Give your people proper training in how to use your systems to achieve those standards.  Manage their performance.  Reward good performance and re-train when it's not so good.

People want to learn and develop, they want to grow - it's much more of a motivator than money.  Give them ownership of their job, help them to feel like they belong to something, that you're relying on them to help you build something that you can all be proud of.

I saw this quote on Facebook, and it is oh so true - 'A team is not a group of people who work together.  A team is a group of people who trust one another.'

Trust your people and build a high performing team, that runs your high performing business.
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Get control of your freak.  Pull out the bindweed that's killing your business.

For more information on how MPL can help you visit www.mariannepage.co.uk or contact me on hello@mariannepage.co.uk