better business blog

Tips and stories to add value to you and your organisation

Three Questions For A Healthy Business

27 March 2011

I’ve been having a tidy up this weekend. In fact ‘tidy up’ doesn’t really do it justice, given that I’ve relocated my office office back into my home office, stripped the home office shelves bare, thrown away old documents and mobile phone cables, sorted out my archive in the loft, thrown away more old bits of tat and then re-populated the office shelves, so that they look clean and organised and purposeful.

There’s a bit of fine tuning to do, but I have to say that a Spring clean and general change around was well overdue. Ratty and Moley would be proud, and no doubt would whip up a sumptuous picnic to celebrate.

Out of all this dusty, yet rewarding, activity three lessons emerge…lessons which I’ve been reminding myself of this weekend. They are:

1. Nothing is forever. I’ve really enjoyed having a shared office space and now, having written two books there and sorted out my ILM accreditation, it’s time to move on. Change is good – I’m on the road a lot more again and don’t need to have two desks!

2. Build income streams before expenditure streams. I was debating whether to find another office space, when a colleague of mine pointed out that it’s easy to accumulate costs and that good business requires you to make money before you spend it. (How many people do you know who run their business the other way round?) So, I’ve moved my office rent budget for the year ahead into my marketing budget, which is a better use of resouces and frees me up to boost the spend on book four.

3. Be decisive. When you move: move. When you’re throwing things away: throw stuff away. It’s amazing how tempting it’s been to dither, or to hang on to bits of paper….yet if I’ve not touched it in 6 years, do I really need it? So, I’ve been decisive and have moved everything home, have been ruthless with the waste and have kept asking myself: ‘What am I keeping this for?’

It’s been a great weekend. And leaves me with three questions for you to think about this week:

1) Where could you make a big change to your business expenditure and reinvest the money into something more useful to you?

2) What do you need to be decisive about this week?

3) What are you keeping all that clutter for exactly…???

Have a good week. I’m off to nick some of Ratty’s potted ham, potted shrimp, jellied lobster, farmhouse cheese, cold chicken, cold tongue, cold pork, pickles, crusty loaf, biscuits, apple juice, scones, butter, strawberry jam and thick cream. He may be a fictional rat, but he does whip up dastardly delicious comestibles.

Tags: questioning, tip

Classic Interview Questions

6 June 2010

Imagine that you’re going to an interview next week and you’re trying to get prepared.You’ve read your CV, you’ve polished your shoes and you have a banana to hand (we’ll come back to that later). In my experience that’s often as much as people do to prepare for an interview, on the basis that you can’t guess what you’re going to be asked about. However, many interviews use the same questions, because once you step away from the technicalities of the role, you’re left with basic ‘people information’ that has to be gathered in. Here are my Top 10 Classic Questions, to get us all thinking:

1. Tell me about yourself…
2. Give me 3 strengths and 3 weaknesses…
3. Tell me about your proudest achievement at work…
4. Why do you want to work here?
5. What have you been doing whilst looking for a job?
6. Who else have you applied to?
7. How have you changed in the last 5 years?
8. What challenges would you face if you did this job?
9. What questions do you have for me?
10. Why should we take a risk on you?

How To Answer Classic Questions

The key here is to have your answers prepared in advance, which often means working through them with a trusted friend, to hammer out succinct and informative answers. Questions that begin ‘Tell me about..’ are looking for a short one minute story that showcases your skills and talents. If you get asked about weaknesses, the trick is to talk about things that are ‘everyday’ issues such as having an untidy desk. Some people fall into the trap of revealing genuine weaknesses, such as really poor time keeping, which could cost them the chance of a job.

Whilst you’re looking for work it pays to do something which is work-like, such as managing a sports team, or working in a charity shop. This shows initiative and energy and makes us look better than the next candidate who has been living on his sofa for six months.

Always have a couple of prepared questions, such as ‘What would be my priorities in the first month?’ or ‘Do you have any concerns about my application?’ Both of these questions produce useful information for us and if the interviewer does have any concerns we might as well face them now and explain them away when we have the chance.

Finally, the risk question. A great way to trip up over-confident candidates. The way to answer it is to acknowledge that all new hires are a risk and that in your case your ability to do ‘x’ andyour skill in ‘y’ and your experience with ‘z’ demonstrates that you are a low risk candidate. Easy, when you know how.

Minute To Win It

This is one of the best networking and interview tools, which can help us to answer the dreaded question: Tell me about yourself (or your business)… In fact, it’s so useful that next week’s post is going to be all about it, so catch it here next Monday.

Helpful Answers

There are more questions and detailed sample answers in the book Job Hunting 3.0 which now has a confirmed publication date of 21st June 2010. Please click on the link to visit the Amazon page.

And Remember…. Bananas

Bananas contain slow release sugars which can sustain our energy levels throughout the stress of an interview. This is more useful than the energy spike we get after munching a chocolate bar, which needs to be topped up again a few minutes later. So, before you go into reception, go bananas….it might help you to do really well!

Pass It On

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Missed Last Week’s Post?

Last week was all about 5 Ways to Build Rapport which can make a big diference when we have to do any kind of selling.

Thank you for reading to the end. Do have great interviews!

Tags: interview, questioning, tip