Love Change

I’m working with a new client managing a re-brand of their business. Not just a fresh brand identity but also a new name. BIG CHANGE. Lots of changes to manage both internally and externally, getting staff on board with the rationale and communicating to the marketplace.
Like any big changes, there’s a lot of upheaval but huge benefits for reinvigoration and what this will do for the business.

But you need to have the courage in the first place to take the risk.

In the scrambled up world, changing your branding, your message, your clients, suppliers, business models and teams can be equally challenging and liberating. So change something today.

Micro Trends

More and more of us work from home. Because we can, because it’s easy and because we don’t have to spend ages on a commute. Whilst 3.4 million Americans have a journey of ninety minutes or more to work - more than that - 4.2million permanently work from home. How do I know this bit of trivia? The fascinating “Micro Trends: The Small Forces Behind Today’s Big Changes” * by Mark J.Penn. Penn identifies more than 70 trends in religion, leisure, politics, and business that are changing our lives, from work-at-homers to office-romancers (and it’s not all about Americans).

Working at home has been an important part of my business. I have spent many years working at home. Until now. Until I had a toddler who worked out how to walk upstairs to the loft and open the door. Now, home is no longer a good place to work. So I had to move out. A socio-economic phenomenon not (yet) captured by Mark J.Penn: “Home Workers Who Have To Move Out To A Proper Office Because Their Kids Make Too Much Noise” could make a good chapter.

* “Micro Trends” must have some of the most impressive endorsements I have seen on the front of a book. One from Bill Clinton. One from Bill Gates. Not bad…

25 Days To Go

Leap! has just gone to press.

It will be published on 21st December, available in stores from January. There’s been much reading and approving of proofs and a few of those inevitable last minute tweaks. Videos have been filmed which will be up on Youtube, Amazon and i-tunes shortly.

There's a website for the book at http://www.iansanders.com/

Reinvent Yourself

Mike Southon is a serial entrepreneur, author and columnist. His ‘Beermat Entrepreneur’ series of books have been required reading for wantrepreneurs and start-ups. I first met Mike as his spoof 70s glam rock alter ego Mike Fabgere. But his talents don’t stop there. He’s also been a chemical engineer and a computer salesman and now writes ‘My Business’, a column for the FT. So if ever there was a polymath, Mike is one.

His latest column, ‘You Can Change Who You Are’, is music to my ears as I have always been a fan of reinvention, reinvigorating to stay fresh and successful. In the scrambled up world, there are few rules as to what you can and can’t do; but you need change and reinvention to survive. And that’s in contrast to convention where you are just One Thing, or do just One Thing. That’s fine if your speciality is always in demand, but it’s much more enterprising to change your offering and positioning as the market changes. Not only does it keep your business proposition fresh, it keeps you fresh, stimulated and reinvigorated.

So don’t be shy of changing hats as you develop your business. Whether one-person entrepreneur or bigger venture, in a fast-changing marketplace if you can’t reinvent yourself, the chances are you won’t survive.