📝 Notes for the Curious: Edition #66

Hello,

If you are reading this on Saturday 13th of October then there are now only 79 days left until the end of the year.

How are you going to finish this year strong? What do you need to change now to get to where you want to be?

These are two questions which are uppermost in my mind right now. After a rollercoaster start to the year, filled with highs and lows, the goals I set quickly spun out of my reach. Not because they were unrealistic when I set them, but because they were no longer attainable under the actual (rather than predicted) circumstances.

Do I feel like I’ve failed? NO! Absolutely not, I have achieved so much this year. But it would be so easy to focus on what I haven’t achieved and ignore everything that I have.

If you too have been caught out by a year that didn’t quite go as expected, I want you to grab a piece of paper or open a blank document on your computer and write out all your achievements this year. They can be big events “Facebook invited me to their head office in San Francisco to speak about community” or big actions “I kept going even when I thought I couldn’t keep going” or small wins “I loved my work”. Whatever your wins are, write them down. When I do this I am always amazed at how much I have forgotten, how much I brushed past as not that important as I was focused on pursuing the next win.

Revel in your wins, you’ve earned them. And if you would like to share your biggest win with me so far then hit reply to this email, I’d love to hear them. Mine is definitely the one I shared with you above, Facebook, San Francisco - I can still hardly believe it happened. Now, what’s next?

1) The best time to do anything

My clients know that I am a big believer in seasons. Not just the autumn, winter, spring, summer seasons but also seasons of life and business. I believe that some times are better than others to do certain things and knowing when you need to ease back in one area to let another thrive is a corner stone of how I operate. If “NOW!” isn’t always the right answer, then how do you know when the right time is? Fortunately, science is here to help us out. Find out when is the right time to do anything, quit your job, launch your next service or product, invite that grumpy client for a meeting. If not now, when? Let’s find out.

2) Create a standing ovation worthy TED talk

It is no secret to my friends that one of my goals is to have a story worth sharing on a TED stage. When I started investing in getting better at public speaking I knew that eventually I wanted to get good enough at it to be accepted for a TED talk. I’m not there yet, mostly because I am still narrowing down the right story, but I will be. And when I’m ready, I’m definitely going to be using these 10 steps to help me prepare.

3) Too shy to sell?

Most of my clients struggle with the concept of promoting what they do. They don’t like selling. It feels “icky”. But if you don’t tell people what you do, how can they know they should work with you? If you are too shy to sell, Petra Fisher’s story of how she built a business through LinkedIn is a must read.

4) You can’t game the system

And when it comes to social media, you shouldn’t even try. It is a waste of your time to try and get around Facebook’s algorithms. Stop trying to crack the code and instead learn from what is working for others. Don’t try and copy it, what works for one business, person or brand will almost certainly not work for another in the same way. But by looking at what they are doing, and identifying where those success points align with what you are doing, you can start to create small actions which will hopefully pay off in bigger results. Industry heavyweights, Buffer and BuzzSumo teamed up to do the hard work for you by analysing 43 million Facebook posts from 20,000 brands. Then they break down what they learnt and tell you what you can do today to help your Facebook marketing.

5) SEO, it’s still important

Having operated a large, content driven website for seven years now I will be the first person to tell you that SEO is not the be all and end all of your content strategy. We are the top result or at least page one for just about everything we want to be on Google and I can promise you that there was (and still is) no SEO strategy attached to this. Our writers write good content, that’s it. And by good I mean relevant, informative content that people are looking for. That doesn’t mean that SEO isn’t important, it is, and understanding that is one of the keys to not having to focus on it quite so much. Things are always changing, there is always more to learn, but to reach the results you want, you need to have a basic understanding of how what you are writing is received by search engines. Here are nine simple steps you can take to get your content in front of new audiences using SEO.

Until the next Notes,

Emmy

P.S. It’s October! If you would like to meet me at an event this month then WIT Regatta is the place to be. WIT Regatta which begins on the 29th of October in Amsterdam. It is shaping up to be an amazing event, with fascinating panels all through the week. You do not need to be working in tech to participate and I firmly believe that there is something for everyone in this conference. I will be participating in the Lead from Every Chair panel and moderating the When Women Turn on Each Other: Why it happens and how to fix it on the 30th of October. I would love to see as many of you there as possible. If you don’t already have a ticket then my code: regattaspeakerfriend will give you 35% off the ticket price.

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Who am I and who do I help? I’m Emmy McCarthy and I make small businesses better and help people create leadership in their communities.

If you would like my help to get get clear, get focused and take action to reach your business goals, these are the ways we can work together. 

1. The Change Maker Programme - A 5 month group learning + mentoring programme to work through the structure, systems and strategy of your business and move you from overwhelmed at all the things to confident leader of your business alongside a small group of peers. The Programme is now closed until 2019.

2. The Change Maker Collective - For established business owners who thrive in the support of their peers and are ready to make more impact, income and influence with what they do. New cohorts start every three months with a maximum of 8 people per group. The next cohort will begin in January 2019 and is already partially full. Please contact me now if you want to lock your place in.

3. 1:1 Mentoring - For business owners who are ready to transform their business with personal, actionable strategies to achieve their goals. I have a very limited number of available business brainstorm session and VIP sessions. Please reply to this email if you would like more details.

❓ Do you have a burning question that you think I can answer? I don't have all of the answers, but that just gives me a good excuse to learn more. Hit reply to this email to send me your question.

🎙 Would you like me to speak on your podcast or present to your audience? I'd love to! Visit my speaking page to get in touch. 

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