GENERAL

Looking for inspiration or to ways build your business skills? You can’t beat a great book! These must read books for entrepreneurs will help you discover more about the psychology of marketing, tweak your mindset and enhance your leadership skills. These are the business books I love, recommend and buy for entrepreneurs and small business owners.

My ancient lawnmower grumpily skulked in my garden shed. It hated the sunshine and being removed from the cool dark cave. It hated, even more, being forced to start and did everything in its ageing power not to do any work.

First, it was spark plugs, and then the petrol wasn’t fresh enough. Then the oil was a teeny bit on the thick side. Next, the air filter had a bit of dust until finally, the primer decided to go out in sympathy.

If you are looking for inspiration, new ideas and some great business strategies, then you can’t go wrong with a well-written business book.

Each year I share the books that made the most impact on me during the year. These make great gifts for your favourite entrepreneur, or to read over the summer break.

Ask small business owners why they started their own business, and in amongst the desire to make a difference or to deliver a better service for people, you will also find a hunger to have a better work/life balance or live an improved lifestyle.

My own journey into business had the same blend of reasons. In my early days as a single mum, traditional wages employment was simply not working in making the balancing act work. So, I went into small business.

I was wondering why one of my favourite long term clients had not paid their monthly invoice. Sometimes they were a few days late when things got busy for them, but this was out of the ordinary.

And then I opened the email from their accounts team.

Tears were pricking at the back of my eyes. I was gripping the car’s steering wheel so tightly that it left indentations on my fingers. Waves of panic were threatening to crash dump over my head and force any remaining calmness into the sand.

I was a single mum with two very young kids in my car. I had decided in a fit of independent bravado to drive 1000+ km to take my kids to visit my family. The only problem was I was in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by stony-faced sheep, and I had no idea where I was or how to get to where I needed to be.

The Christmas/New Year break is a great chance to relax with a good book. If you are looking for a non-fiction book that is powerful, insightful and meaningful, here’s my top 5 recommended books from the 50+ books that I read this year.

Last week I broke a taboo.

On my personal Facebook page, I shared that 2016 had been tighter than I would have liked. While there were many brilliant moments and lovely clients, there was one week when even though work had been done and invoices had been issued, my income was a princely $20.17.

I was having a massive confidence wobble where a j-o-b was looking attractive.

Yesterday I cried. I have never cried for another country’s election result before. But yesterday I cried.

Why did I cry?

I cried for the millions of people who obviously had felt unheard and ignored for many years. Who had watched the world change around them in ways they couldn’t understand – other than that they had no job and no food to put on the table.

Have you ever said yes to something and then wondered how in heck you are going to make it work?

One of my dear friends, Sandy, is a uni lecturer at ACU. A few weeks ago when she suddenly needed surgery that involved a long recovery time, she asked if I could step in and take her final year students for a few weeks for her.

Gulp!

Everyone wants a social media post that goes viral. 99.99% of posts don’t make it huge. Many get a nice result, but every now and again you get a Chewbacca Mum moment.

This week we had our moment courtesy of a fabulous Aussie postie and his love of dogs – in particular a dog called Pippa who loves collecting the mail.

This piece is the first post from our intern, Rachel Cliff. She is a final year Mass Communications student at QUT, and crafted this profile about one of our long term clients, Brian Wilson, from Pianocare for her assessment. It was such a lovely piece that we simply had to share it on our blog. Thank you Brian for your generosity of time in allowing Rachel to interview you!

Am I the only one who checks out people’s bookshelves when visiting their house for the first time?

Way back in the olden days before Justin Bieber was born, checking out bookshelves was the best way to get a window into the personality of the person who owned the books.

At any social event or gathering, after suitably greeting the cat, I could always be found sidling up to the nearest bookshelf and checking out the spines of the books on display.

One of my not-so-secret passions is trend watching: Identifying what will be hot and what will disrupt the future of work. I am a regular guest writer for the Women’s Network Australia on the subject of disruptive trends and the industries they will impact.

Small business is hard. Damn hard. If you told people the truth about how hard it can be at times, they a) wouldn’t believe you and b) would think that they would be able to do it better and easier than you while looking immaculate.

It’s a lot like parenting.

No one tells you about the exhaustion, the confusion, the second guessing, the moments when you lose the plot and cover your daughter’s teddy bear in food dye (… or is that just me?)