October 2025 Business Round Up Show

Show Notes

On this month’s Women in Business Radio Show, host Sian Murphy is joined by regular co-host and Michele Yianni-Attard and special guest Jane Martin, business connector and Federation of Small Businesses membership advisor, for a business roundup.

They share what’s gone well and what’s gone a bit sideways over the past few weeks. From Michele’s trip to Malta and stepping into her new role as CFO of a bank, Jane’s experiment with simple, direct LinkedIn outreach that has her diary overflowing, to Sian’s hunt for the right operations manager, and why getting the right job title and role was key.

The conversation takes a no-nonsense approach to sales, why spammy “I found an error on your website” emails don’t work, and how real business so often happens in unexpected venues – from wine bars and Wetherspoons booths to go-kart tracks.

Created and hosted by Sian Murphy with regular co-hosts Michele Yianni Attard, Kay Best, Rachael Bryant and occasionally Adelle Martin.

Find out how to be a guest or patron of the show on the Women in Business Radio Show website.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-women-in-business-radio-show--1228431/support.

Created and hosted by Sian Murphy with regular co-hosts Michele Yianni Attard, Kay Best, Rachael Bryant and occasionally Adelle Martin.

Find out how to be a guest or patron of the show at https://thewomeninbusinessradioshow.com

★ Support this podcast ★

Creators and Guests

Host

Adelle Martin

Host

Michele Yianni-Attard

Host

Sian Murphy

What is The Women In Business Radio Show?

Tune in for fun, inspiration and unfiltered discussions as host Sian Murphy interviews down-to-earth businesswomen sharing ideas, tactics and stories.

Regular features include recommended books, tools, lessons learned and top tips for business.

Welcome to the Women in Business Radio show with Sean Murphy, connecting women in business around the globe. Hello, and welcome into the Women in Business Radio so studio. So we are going to have our regular business round up for the month, and my co host today is well as usual for this show, Mikhael and also in the studio with us today, we have a lovely Jane Roltin, who was a very good friend to all of us. And actually, what I'm going to do, Jane, is I'm going to let you tell people what you do. Well. I'm a business connector, so I connect different businesses together a mutual benefit. Some businesses might want a new client, some businesses might want services and products that other people offer. So what I do is I spend time listening to those peopleunderstanding what they do, and then trying to connect and help to grow each each person's business. And you've been doing this, This isn't a new thing. Is that you've been doing this for quite a while. Yeah, I've been doing it quite a while. It started. I'm Alwoso, a membership advisor for the Federation of Small Businesses. During the COVID period, we had lots of conversations. There wasn't a lot of business happening because people were very nervous about spending money. But it made me realize, you know, if you're going to speak to thirty forty businesses in a week and find out what they do, what added value can you give them, which would be connecting them because a lot of people are good at what they do. But as I just saw, I was out just before this chat taking my dog to the groomers, and the dog groomers the dog groomer asked me what I do, and they said, oh, we're in telecoms, but we're really good at what we do, but we find it difficult to find customers. There you go, Wow, I can help them to do that because I know people in telecoms, and I know lots of dog groomers, and I know lots of people on the radio. And there you go, and this is ere it works. It goes round and round. We just ought to get a great, big bus. I always thought this because we could stop off at the wine bar, couldn't we We could like top up, top up, and off we go. Yeah, we have a few beer drinkers, monks, just don't we not menty, we can put them at the back absolutely and off we go. Right, Okay, so this show is our round up. We are going to be talking for the next or let's just say, relaxed hour or so, maybe a little bit less about what has gone well this month, what hasn't gone well this month, and maybe some lessons that have been associated with that. What we're reading, listening to, watching. It could be that we're just staring at the wall, what tools we're using, what we're finding useful to use, and some advice for the month ahead, all from sort of three very very business different some busy business women in quite different sort of walks of life. Really because Miquel Michel does, I'm going to tell you what Miquel does. Michael does all sorts of things. She's she's an accountant, she's an international accountant. She also runs Future Insights. She's which is a consultancy managing accounts for other people. You help you support property businesses, don't you as well? And also they're working with some very strange women run now brand new Savvy Skills, which is a screening hub business which is a training hub training people with what I call hardcore business skillstely so things like finance, not so much things like confidence, although we could bounce out into that, couldn't we. But it's more about, actually, there are some key skills that you need to get to run your business if you're a director, the stuff that you have to do with your finances, with all of this sort of thing. Absolutely, and it's about. It's about what I call the hardcore train. It's not fluffy stuff. So I don't know what I do really, I don't know what I do. I run, I host business showcases, I host, I do this. I published magazines. I don't know. Flap around a lot really, so I work with lots of people. I run events. Mainly, I spend time in wine bars just looking busy. That must be where we met in a wine bar, I mean last wine bar. Soun's good to me. It's a terrible life. That could be one recommendation for the viewers. Good business always starts in wine bars, wine bars, and it carries on in it sort. Of does, doesn't it. And one of the things look no structure, no structure at all. I've written something down. I've got four lines in five four lines, which is quite a lot for me. But straight away. Where are we We're bimbling off down into another road. But you're absolutely right because and in the meetings that we have or they get togethers, it may be in a wine bar, but it is across the board, isn't it. There will be people from the trades. There's professionals, there's crafters, there's holistic people, and it's a real and right mix because we all need. Each other exactly. And when I said to somebody once you know, oh no, well no, you know we're off too. I quite like it when we all get together in wine bars, the wine bars. Well actually but you know, yes, yes it is who gives us stuff. It's only snobbish if you think it's snobbish. Nobody else is there does And that's It's about doing business, isn't it. It's about those conversations that happen. Yeah, exactly, and that the wine bars are business too. Yeah. There you go, and when they think when they when it's a great event, then the people are in there like to go. They go there and it's great time, they take their partners there in a great time and more business. How it works. Absolutely, And whilst we're talking about that, there are so many different places that you may never think about that you can actually go and have business meetings places that are really maybe really keen to host you. So, for instance, we have a meeting next month with Business for Medway, which is at sare Karting. Now, they're not a it's not it's not a meeting room as such. It's not the sort of it's not a boardroom that you go and hire. It's not a council office, it's not a coworking space. It's a suppace where people go and enjoy themselves on carts. But it's a brilliant place to go and have a meeting. It's good fun, it's different. They're more than welcome to you know, more than happy to welcome us. It's show you know, we get the chance to talk about our businesses and what we're doing, and they also get a chance to show other people other businesses are the business people what they're doing. It's it's a really really good way to collaborate. So if you are thinking of running a meeting for your business, or it could be that you're delivering a service or you're meeting someone, always have a think about some of those other venues where you could go. You know, in the UK there weatherspoons. Weatherspoons don't have meat, I don't have music. No, it's true. They have quite a lot of booths and they don't have music or boom boo boo. They have booze as well boo or was it boobs? Okay, weatherspoons they do have booze, but I did say probably have boobs as well, and they do have but they have booths and they have really good WiFi and they have plug sockets. And tell you what, it's a really it's a simple place to go and sit down. There's no carry on, there's no fah, there's no fuss, you can get all daitya and coffee and you can just sit there and have really quite a quiet meeting to yourself. Yep, you know, so just think about those sorts of places. Sometimes I don't know about you, but very often, you know, we end up going to boardrooms or booking meeting rooms where there's additional expense which we don't always need. And it's nice sometimes to get out into the community and share those sort of community type spaces. Absolutely, and ideas are made in pubs and it's how the world has worked for a very very long time. It's where it's where the deals. Had down there. If you think of sage, yeah, sage. Well the accounting people. Yeah, the account when they're not just accounting. I didn't know if it's that stuff that you put in your. Start off as an accounting system. It's all over the world, including everywhere. They started the idea of the name of the company being in a booth there. It's two university guys. He wrote it for his friend's company and they saw, you know, you remember you used to buy those like little sage and stuff, not say like sage. What do they call them? The things that are not book garny. No, no, not cubes, not stock cubes. But is this something you're smoking, not at all? Herbs and spices racks? Yes, Well there was a picture on the wall in this bar and it had Sage, and they went, what about Sage? And that's where the name came from. It was two partners, was the other one? Not called onion. It's always one. I'm just saying, why do we invite this is a very serious discussion exactly, but I'm just saying it comes up with ideas. They just happened to be looking at an absolute picture of a spice rack. That was the word I was trying to get out, and said, oh, Sage, that's that's where it came from me. There you go. I don't want to say no, I don't know what to say, right, I'll tell you what then, let's it would be so good if I've actually prepped any of this for myself at all. So you guys are going to have to go first, and I know you haven't prepped it because you don't know what we're talking about. Okay, So so what has gone well over the last should we do it the other way around? And what hasn't gone well? Oh okay, you got gone well in your head? I did right? Well do that? Then what's gone well over the last month? So last week I was able to meet with the board in Malta, so flew to Malta. Everyone thinks I was on holiday, or wasn't on holiday. She was on holiday because she said later later this earlier today she went I'm going on holiday again, okay next week, which rather which rather suggests that you see it's subliminal, which means that the previous trip to Malta was in fact a holiday, was on doesn't. All I saw was offices and four walls. I did go out for dinner one night with my new board members, and so basically I'm now officially the CFO. Officially I knew I was going to be the CFO, but officially the CFO of a bank. And we started all our quarter reporting last week. I'm really really so yeah. So I'm now clinked with Dubai and Malta. So I'm loving it so phenomenal. I can't get the words out. Its phenomenal. That's it. It's the afternoon. You know what the afternoon's like for me exactly. So anyway, No, that was really good. As I mentioned, we appointed our first member of team and administrator stroke book keeper, stroke accountant for the group. Got nice office. It's all good. Yeah, So that went well last week and then business was made, some certain businesses were made last that. It was a bit of a whole, wasn't it. These things just take a long time, don't they did. And I also met the UK embassy official like a closed networking event last week and she was very insight conversation with her. So yeah, it was a really good week. So that went well for me last week. So this is why we should do it the other way around. We should have what didn't go well and then we can finish a bit on a high. Never mind, never mind, I mean that is wow, well done, thank you, that's brilliant, thank you. What went well for you? Well? One word LinkedIn? Yay, Okay. We tried a new approach to working with LinkedIn, and I've got a team making connections for me and I've been running behind myself with appointments. They're taking a very direct approach. So it's you know, Hi, it's Jane. This is what I do think how to look at your business. Would really like to have a chat with you. I think it would be valuable that we work together. When I heard that, I thought, no, that's too direct. I'd be a little bit more touchy feely. I have people sending me messages saying, I'm really sorry, Jane, I've been away on holiday. I'm really sorry. I'd really love to meet you. My calendar is full. It's been full for the last month, it's full for this month pretty pretty much. Yeah, and it's been amazing. So is this just messages? You're just messaging people that you're connected with on LinkedIn. Do you know what you said was about it being really direct? Is that for a long time has always been my approach, and I get really quite not cross. I'm not sure that cross is the right word. But you see so much sales training that's talking about overcoming objections. You know, like there's some sort of secret psychological trick here that you have to do, that you have to pull the wool over some people's eyes, that you have to approach it this way and go on, I'm just doing a survey or you know, I'm not selling anything. I just you know, and I don't appreciate being approached to like that. I feel like I'm being lied to. I think, you know, if somebody needs your service, all you need to do is show it to them and answer questions that they have and be honest. And if they say, oh, does it do X, Y and Z, you just say no, it doesn't, because they're going to find out. They are going to find out that it doesn't do that. So what on earth is the point of mushing around it? Just say no, it doesn't, and that's it. Really it doesn't. And then what I find happens is that it might not be right for them because you've been quite honest with them. Actually, I don't think this isn't right for you because of X, Y and Z, but that they will if they may well at some point come across somebody and it is right for them, and they actually what you need to do, go and have a chat with these guys because they know that you're on this. What on earth is the point of all that sub diffusion carry on? And so I can see why just an approach, this is what we do. You've got one of those, you know you've got one of these. This is what we do. Would you like to have a. Chat exactly that? Would you like? Would you like to have a chat? It's either yes or no. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. I don't like it either. And I see whole people making entire professions out of smoke mirrors, deceit, yeah, gray areas, And I think, what what an effort? Yeah, it's very disrespectful. It is disrespectful. Most people can pick up on that and they feel like they're being taken and for a full. Yeah yeah, and I never really see the point. And the other thing I get are emails that I've had a look at your site and there's something and there's something wrong with it. Did I ask you to. Didn't work? They ask you to go and look at my website. Of course there's something wrong with it. There's something wrong with nearly every website in the entire world. But I didn't ask you to do that. And then and then when you delete them or you don't get back to them, you get a series of emails. I'm still waiting for your response. Are you really I didn't ask you to look at it in the first place. You know, I've put together this report you won't and you block them, But but it's not blockable? Is it because they just come back with it? They come back with another thing. And people not take take the hint. Well, I think it's because you know, when you when you have a look at these very often they the people actually sort of don't exist. There's no phone number. It's a big not spamming thing, but it's just going out and it's like rotation emails aatly and it's you know, selling on behalf of a big agency or something along those lines, so that it's not a person. There isn't somebody sat there called George going oh my goodness. Maybe they still haven't looked at my email, but really, who who falls for this? Some people must, I guess, you know. Whereas if you've got you know, so we work with WordPress. If you've got a WordPress website, you might want some help with it. You've got a WordPress website, we actually work with that sort of thing. Did you want to have a chat? No? Oh, okay, yes, right, let's have a chat. Makes sense, that's it, totally. M hm. And just you know what we what we've changed. We've been doing a lot of having data and linking cold calls to appointment to where decision makers, which I don't I don't have a problem doing, but it doesn't really work anywhere near as connecting with the original people. And it comes back to the lots of the conversations have about creating a relationship and if you know somebody on LinkedIn and you're already connected with it's just brilliant. Yeah, absolutely no, And it's you know, I think as long as you're not lying exactly, don't people don't want fluff. We haven't got time for all of that. And the thing is, you know, I can see in those direct you know, the direct messages that come in LinkedIn, Hello, I noticed that we're connected and it's lovely, and then it's this is what we do boom boom boom boom boom boom boom, and then a link through for you to go and have a look at it. Yeah, they know nothing about me and they haven't taken the time to have any look at anything. And it's and then telling me, you know, we need to have a chat, because no we don't. We don't need to have a chat at all. If I need your services, I don't need to talk to you. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, the one you know you learn more by listening and finding out isact those people have actually done some research first of all, and found out something good about you do, something good about your website, something good. Well, I'm I yes, and no, I don't know. Is that not a little bit like when you get those spammy emails that says, I've had to look at your website and it's lovely, it's got some really good stuff about it. But yeah, but I get those everybody probably across. The and I think it's probably because you know, that's what we do, we work with with websites. But you know, I think something can be really good. But that doesn't mean that you don't need some help with it. Or it can look absolutely or it can look absolutely awful, or that it could be a real problem. It can be really really slow. But that's right. You're not in a space where you want help with it. That's fine. I My personal approach is you have one of these we do this, Do you need some help? Yeah, that would have been better approach. Yeah. No, they're just like send it out two hundreds of thousands of peoples the globe, but email and then just people sort of thinking that sales is a lot harder than it is. It really, sales is not difficult. It's just not difficult. It's it's when you do that hard sell that yeah, that's difficult. When you're selling, you're solving a problem for someone where you're finding a solution to something, or you're or you're offering them something they want or need. That's why we don't it. That's why we don't like sales calls. You need to build relationships with people. Everyone needs to build a relationship. If I'm not building a relationship with you, and I don't know you, and I've not met you, and I've not been connected with someone that knows me and thinks that I can use your service. I won't use you. What's the point because people haven't built good relationships with people? If that makes sense, I. Just think there was you know. But even if you don't know somebody, you know, if I go and buy something, If I go and buy a pair of shoes from the shop, I don't have a relationship with the with the person selling the shoes, that's different. That's it's sort of yes, isn't it? Isn't Okay, I'm talking about things within your business. But if it's a very expensive pair of shoes, it's still an investment, isn't it. And so there are certain things that you need to know about trust. You know, if you're if you're spending a thousand pounds on a pair of shoes, there are things that you need to know about your ability to take those shoes back or do various bits and pieces. There are still questions, And I think you can still approach people when you don't know them, but don't give them a pile of crap. Yeap, okay? Interesting have you ever had have you ever been approached by somebody to buy your services as an accountant? Where they don't know you. Oh, interesting, because most of our clients come from word of mauth so so do hours. However, there are a couple hall where they have actively found us on LinkedIn. Okay, I've never had anyone come from LinkedIn. We have Okay, maybe I'm doing something different than LinkedIn and. That, but but there are people who will that you know at some point, you know, I can envisage people coming to you where there hasn't been a relationship, even though most about most of the work that we do comes either other clients recommend them to us for a work press exactly, or people recommend or somebody else has recommended them and so they've found us somebody situation. But I don't think it's essential. I don't. I don't think it's essential. I mean, if you're if you're using LinkedIn, or you're using trust Pilot or something. People might come directly because they see positive reviews or something somebody else has said, and they're the kind of person who's like, well, I need to find somebody who's good. I've heard loads of I've read loads of reviews that these people are good. I'll give them a creed. Yeah, tell you where the difference might be as it happens. So the people that have found us are people that I wouldn't and I'm not going to give any names out here, but they're people who you wouldn't necessarily expect to be moving and networking in business circles. So they are people who are working in like niched areas of finance and that sort of thing. They're not out they may be working internationally, so they're not in our local they're not in our y bars, they're not in our local groups, so they don't know people to recommend. There isn't anybody that they know that can say, do you know somebody who does? And so they've actually gone out looking. So they've looked in Google, which is really what we're looking for when we optimize to turn up on Google. We're looking for people who don't know us, Yeah, to find us, aren't we Yeah we are, and very often on LinkedIn it's slightly different. But what we would like to happen is that people who don't know us also find us. But the sales process, I think it's just about being honest. Know what you do, know what you can do, know what your limitations are, and be honest. About it. Yeah, that makes sense, right. There's enough offering on for me, isn't it. So now I've got to find something that went well. Have not? Okay, I'll tell you what has gone well for me over the last month or so is that I have been looking for an operations manager, somebody who can help me keep keep all of the moving parts of me and my business together, that can help me with this, and I couldn't. I was having trouble finding somebody, actually, and one of the reasons that it wasn't working was that I was looking for initially a PA. So I was out looking for a PA, a personal assistant, somebody who would be doing that. This is actually really about how import words are. And I spoke to some but actually, you know, you're just not going to do what it is I need you to do. And then I thought, oh, perhaps I need a project manager because I have lots of things going on. And it wasn't a project manager either. So I spoke to a few project managers. No, I don't know, it just was nothing wrong with them, It just wasn't it. And then I actually started thinking about words and roles and jobs and who does what so much the same as for me, there's a very big difference between a manager yep. A director. Yeah, absolutely, very very different sometimes, but I think people get them very very confused. So I went and took my own advice and really thought about what I was looking for and asking for, and I came up with operations manager. Okay, that's not They're not sitting inside a deep project. They're actually sitting between me and my team and making sure that everything that I want to happen is going to happen and is communicated properly, and that we're talking about the right dates, times, venues, and that everything that is needed to be correct for all of that lot to happen happens. And that is an operations manager. And I found it. I found somebody, but I found. Somebody that's even better. And she stood up at a networking event she spoke and what it's you. It's you, And I actually had a meeting with that that day at that event. That's really good. It was the weirdest, it's the weirdest thing. So I think my message there is no exactly what it is that you want. Really really think about the words and who you and the role that you're looking for. Okay, and also just sort of bide your time and keep an eye out. You know. I decided that rather than going through all of this recruitment, i'd actually just I'm going to meet you, whoever you are, I'm going to meet you. And I just kept an eye out for them, and they came and they arrived brilliant. It's our universe speaking. Yes, it's just I don't know, perhaps widening your expectations about where you find somebody. I think typically when we say we need to recruit and get somebody in our business, we go down this process, don't we We did where we go, Okay, well, this is what I need, and here's a job specification and a person specification, and this is what that is. And these are the routes that I'm going to go down to find that person. And I'm going to and they're going to send in application forms, whereas I finally just sort of went, okay, but you know, they're out here. Yeah, they've got to be. They're here somewhere, and I'm going to meet them, will be in the wine. Bar sometimes exactly. Yeah, Sometimes you need to go through those processes because then you're in the middle of it and you think, no, this isn't right. Yeah, and that then leads you to the right to the right thing, if I might add there, I put out an advert a few months to go on LinkedIn for appointment setters, and I was in dated with people. Okay, but you know what is an appointment setter for you? Yeah? Measiley looking after the diary, that. Sort of thing exactly. So I got these highly qualified people who have been chief executive pas, who can manage a diary, and what I needed people who can do cold calling. Yeah, so I had to adjust. But I didn't realize that because other colleagues that I work with, that's what they call them, they can't have appointments centers. Yeah, so you have to go through that process because it wasn't until I had seventeen applications people that were fantastic. But I was just thinking, when you make two hundred cars a day, probably. Not, but would they be any good? You know, I can make appointments with anybody you like. That's just a job chart. No, no, no, I can think of nothing worse. Not not working for you, Jane, But that's just not But I am really good at that sort of thing. I can just I can make appointments, yeah, because they'll be useless. Your friend all day on the phone talking to people who don't want to join the I have some nice chats. Yeah. So it's the words really really matter, you know. Are you a manager? Are you a director? Are you a project manager? Are you a general manager? Because it really does matter, doesn't it? It does? Right, So away from the happiest stuff on to what didn't work. So I had to do a lot of Excel spreadsheet work in my in my job, and you know, last week I was doing this big, massive core report and as I was doing it, it was all these errors, Like all the figures were in confine. It was the micros, something connected to this, connected to that, and it was driving me crazy. It was just driving me crazy that it wasn't working. So I kept checking it, closing it, opening it, checking it, closing. It was going on like this for a whole day. Everything was in there, everything it needed to be in there, but it just kept coming up with these errors. And I passed it over. Well, actually you might have gone well passed it over and I said, could you find those errors? Ding ding D done by the administrator. Hang on a minute, doesn't sound like something that. Has gone wrong doesn't know that. In my eyes, I was pulling my hair out and somebody else. It just goes to show you need to delegate. Yeah, I'm an accountant and I need to do it myself. I put all the figures in, but the micros were not working in the background. Because it's background. It's like given to you by the authorities to fill in, and it just was I was pulling my hair out, so I passed it over. And sometimes it needs those fresh it dies. I think often it needs fresh eyes. And it just goes to show that delegation is so key. You can't do everything on your own. And that's what I was thinking. No, no, no, I'll get it out there. I'll get I'll get it done, blah blah. All the information was there, it was just some micros were not sinking properly. I think sometimes also one of the problems with people who have our types of brain is that you disappeared down into the rabbit hole of problem solving, yes, and you don't realize you're in the rabbit hole until like three days of past. I could have been for another week, do this. Three days have gone past, and you're still looking at the spreadshe pressing buttons, I really doing back up saving them as something else. So now you've got three hundred copies of the spreadsheep. I was going great by the hour, seriously, and you know that was what was really going wrong. It's like, you know, find someone to help you sold that problem. You can't do it. So what would in your own So when if you have gone I don't have a tactic for this, to be honest. So if you have gone down the rabbit hole, it's about recognizing that actually you're not solving anything. No, you should be passing this over. But it's really difficult to stop churning. You know, it is one hundred percent is But just like sometimes I get my husband to look at something for me. I mean he's a company, he's company secretary in a group company. So and he's a qualified bookkeeper. So I said, could you just brunch your eyes over that I'm missing something and he'll go, oh, it's because of this, is this, And it's because I'm not seeing the wood for the tree. And it's about having that discipline, isn't it or no, not discipline, having a system in place that says Okay, dumpling, you've had You've been staring at the street for eight hours. There, let's you know, it should an alarm, you know, set an alarm. Set How long should this take me? Three hours? It's alarm. Okay, so set an alarm. It's three hours. I've been looking at this and churning it around. I'm stuck on a problem. Okay, It's time to either stop or give it to somebody else. Yeah, somebody else. So delegate it, you know, get somebody else to help you. You're not on your own. There must be someone that you could use. I think even if you stop, you know, so if you're able to to, well put it like this. If you're not able to, I think it's actually going to get any better anyway, is it? But just stop, go away from it, you know, have at least an hour away, Go out for a walk, do something different, Listen to some loud music, something anything to break, you know, to break the rhythm so that you can come back and look at it fresh. Yeah, you're right. Sometimes you're in your own worst enemy. See, well, you've you decided to be an accountant. I'm just. What you could also do is what quite a lot you know when you when you're scrolling and looking at the at the different news that's going on, and suddenly there comes up this advert saying, look at this image, there's a cat in here somewhere, spot where the cat is? So you could do that. This is my report. There's something wrong. I can't quite put my finger on it. And exactly so all your spreadsheets your genius. So that's what you need. You need exploding cats in your spreadsheet program. But it wasn't the figures. The figures were perfect and stuff. It was micros. I had to put nought This is it. This sounds silly. It was I had to put naughts in places that you don't put figures. Oh yeah, yeah, I get that. Get I get that because it will see it as infinity or it will see it's nothing. There's no get. But it's so nice when somebody asks you something like that. Somebody says, I've been trying, I've been trying to work the days. Can you ever look at it? And you go, oh, yeah, is. That exactly what happens? I love those and I'm always quite cool about it. Could they go no, it's nothing, No, don't mention it please, So anyway, you don't need an any in your life. So what didn't go well for you? Jane? I run out of wine? Oh no, no, what didn't go well? Very similar? Not similar to you, but but kind of. I'm always chasing targets and I had a great target. I missed it this month by thirty nine pounds. Oh no. And the reason I missed it by thirty nine pounds is because I was so busy with all of those fantastic appointments. Yeah, Mike. At about five o'clock on the thirtieth of October, my laptop decided to die. So I transferred to my tablet out all the emails, and the following morning at four o'clock, I fought, I wonder if that person's done what they should have done, so that adds to the target. And then I realized that the tablet hadn't sent any of them because they were all in the albums. So there you go. Oh my words. No, So what would you do about to stop that happening in the future? Do less? Actually take another hour to review? Calm down? But you know what it's like when you're doing your finishing work. You've just got totally guess in the background saying dinner's ready and you're like yeah, yeah, yeah, no, dinner's ready, and it's like okay, and you sit down and then you get chatting and then it happens. But do you s sorry, sorry, no, please? Do you send the same thing in the email altogether? When you're sending the email out, apart from changing the name and making a little bit personal is it usually the same information that you put in the. Email of it is the same, and I think you personalize it. Yeah, I'm thinking of something like because we in our firm, we use like mauchimp, and I send it out a campaign that has an extra and going to places and stuff, and it actually personalizes it for you. So send it. Yeah. Sorry, that could be one of the tool that we can talk about. But mauchim is really useful for us because it can personalize. It can put the person's name, and it's like a subscription process so they can click it and then do what they need to do and then you'll know that they looked to that email and they've actually clicked on whatever you get. That's good. Yeah, I haven't used mailchimp for years. You've written it down because it's time to ring. Is it? That's what I was thinking. And then you don't have to b C see anybody or C see anybody because it's all they're connected that they've got the email like you personally gave it to them. I mean, I don't know about you, guys. I feel a little bit overwhelmed at the moment by all of the different tool systems. I know, we're going to talk about this in a minute. Yeah, every second, And at the moment it's been fantastic. But a lot of the people I've talked to, well, we do AI, we do this, we do this. I must have had about fifteen conversations in the last week with people who do AI. What do I struggle with is how's that different from the other person and how does that fit in and what can that do for business? Yeah, and I met some. Really interesting ladies who it might be interesting to have them on the show one time. Who two ladies who come from the financial background, financial services, And what they've done is they've created something with AI. But it's a tool to actually help businesses to maximize the use. So if you're using let's say chat GBT, do you understand how to use it? So that you can get So it's about them sitting down saying what do you want out of it? What do you need for your business? And then they will then tell you and help you to understand how to get the maximum. I think, I think what you've just said there is the key. You know, there are so many tools and AI has just brought it just I don't know, just magnified that by squillions and billions, and there are so many wraps for things like chat GPT as well. I've actually found that chat GPT can just do most of it's sort of out of the box actually, but for me because I also have there's so much stuff. You know, there's so many news letter tools. I know so much about newsletter tools, CRMs, all of that sort of thing, that my starting point is always what do I actually want to achieve? But also take it back another level. So say I say something to say my initial thing is I want to send newsletters to, you know, one hundred people for insance, I want to send news that. I want to send emails to one hundred people. Okay, lovely, what okay? But why for what purpose? Well? Why do I want to send emails to people? Oh? So that I can tell them about my X Y and Z. Okay, why do I want to tell them about my X Y and Z so that I can increase my customer base for And then actually starts to go, okay, what are other ways that I can actually do that? And I think a lot of people we get this when people come to us for websites, they want a website to do this. Sometimes I don't need a website at all because they want to deliver a membership, you know, they want to deliver lessons to people. Well, actually you can do that with a newsletter system. You don't need to spend, however, much on a membership website. So what do you actually want to achieve? And it could be that you can achieve what you want to do with the newsletters by ringing a few people. Could be that you can't. But so many different tools do different things. What do you want to achieve? What's what's the outcome? Not the output? The output from me is I've sent one hundred newsletters. The outcome is that I have three clients new I have three new clients. Is there another way of doing that? So we can just get tool? I'm quite techy, I enjoyed. I enjoy learning new things, and we can get quite sort of. I can go in new tools. I could be in their weeks looking at new tools. It is fascinating. I'm not an expert to any of these things, but just a small story. I have a new client for something else that I do. I was telling Sean, who's in Berlin, okay, and I lived in Germany for a long time, so I speak fluent German, and I'm really looking forward to working with them because it means I can speak German, which you don't often do. So when it came to write them the proposal, I wrote it all in German and then I thought I'll hang on a minute here because usually I would use a person to correct, and I used to send it to a correction service just to make sure it was perfect. Who can I send this to? And then I thought, oh, we'll try chat GBT. Stuck it in, came out perfectly. In fact, the person speaking to me, who's known me for a while said, your German's got really good, Jane. Ye. Last time I went on to chat GBT, it started speaking to me in Germany. Yeah. Now it only speaks to me in German. That's fascinating. It's someps to mean Welsh, Welsh. I keep telling it. I'm not Welsh, but yeah, so easy, Yeah, I think the key message what was it that didn't work for you? Remember what didn't work for me? Oh? That was it? You didn't presend, Yes, you didn't prestend. And then I don't know, I went off down talking about goodness knows what? Okay, what didn't work? Do you know? There's actually been quite a lot that hasn't worked. I went away to Portugal for a few days. It was supposed to be a break, and I'm not sure that it was. So I didn't have a proper break because I was dipping in and doing work and thinking I should be working whatever. So I've sort of spent the last three weeks struggling to to work really because I did take a proper break, because I couldn't let myself stop, and so I've been stop, start, stop starting. Really sort of quite tired over the last few weeks. So I haven't really been going out a lot either. And if you're not careful, if somebody like me, you can sort of like almost go inside. I call it indoor cat and outdoor cat and I've been very sort of indoor cat and I need to get out and be out there and sort of get energized, and so I've been struggling with that a bit. Now I've got you know, I've got lots of stuff that I want to get done, and i've been doing not emergency stuff because I don't really have that, but just sort of not doing the stuff that I want to do to move things forward, you know, with the radio show and that sort of thing. I've been doing. Okay, I've got courses that I have to get published, I've got this I have to do, I've got events I have to run. Let's just get that going. And the other stuff, the aspirational stuff, what I you know, where I want to go in the future, has just been a bit. Oh. So I just haven't taken proper break and I've been tired. So sorry, it's not for sympathy. So you need to get out, Yeah, I actually, yeah, I do. It's it's just the way that I react, and sometimes you don't notice that it's happening, and that can be the problem. So you haven't had enough of a break, You're feeling a bit tired, and so you sort of you. I also broke the foot, so I've been a bit sort of hobbling around a bit so but not getting out as much as I should, you know. And then like you can't get your jeans on. It's like, oh, I've got some tracks himself, and now I've got I haven't put on any way as such. It's just that I've been wearing really baggy clothes, so everything feels really tight and horrible. So but that's it. I haven't a lesson. Take a proper break. Yeah, and you need to take a proper break normally when I'm going away and I know I'm going away, I'm not going to mention your holiday again that you didn't have. No, I'm just saying, if it's really a holiday, don't take your don't take your laptop with you. I don't take your laptop with you. Take take okay, take a what do you call those tablets with you or your phone just to check in. Yeah, but you see, if i'm after. That's so different for me. If I check in and something's happened that I need to deal with, it will take me five times longer to do it on my iPad. Then it would an automated service saying I am away for a week. If it is very very urgent, then yeah. But even if it is very very urgent and they come through with very very urgent, it's going to take me five times longer to sort out the very very urgent. I may not even be able to solve it on the iPad. Yeah. I think it's about mind and not about activity. Does that make sense. I think it's about delegat No, No, not even that, because I do have people to delegate to. I think it's about mine. So if there is an emergency, if you really do need to do something, you go, I'm sorting this out. Okay, this is what I'm going to do. I didn't have any emergencies, by the way. This is what I'm going to do. And it's going to take me fifteen minutes, yeah to do that, and I'm done. Okay. My not taking time off is I really should be doing that. I didn't do that before I left it, and it doesn't matter. It wouldn't have happened if I was there anyway, or I should have done that. I haven't done that all. You know, it would be really good if I got down and wrote that and did this and did that, And it's about it's actually a mindset of not switching off. Yeah, you know, tuning in for half an hour a day wouldn't be a problem. It's twenty four hours if I haven't done, and no I should be doing. Yeah, no, I get that. So that's mindset anyway, lesson learned back again, right, what is everybody reading? So you could be reading, you could be listening to, you could be watching, doesn't really matter. It could be fiction, it could be for business, be for pleasure. What you're reading at the moment. I'm part of the book club. So I'm reading a book called Crackle, and it's really interesting because it's for the season, and this season, obviously October is autumn. At the end of the month, there is you know, kids like it, don't they the Halloween things and stuff like that. So it's about these two relationship, these two women. This woman's just moved into an area and she's met this lady, and this lady has this big mansion house. She's become very friendly with her, and she's actually a witch fantasy. Is this a fun witch or is this a burning at the steak book? No, this is a really good This is a really really good book and Crackle it's called and for the life of me, can I remember the author's name. No, I'm sorry, you just have to look at it. I'm listening to it on audio and it's so funny. It's funny comedian kind of references in there. There's also, you know, there is some like jumpy scenes and stuff like that, but it is so cool. I'm really enjoying it as one of those books you really want to listen to because it's funny, brings in a child out of you, and people forget about that in business, about bringing their in a child out of them. And if you can read something that's lighthearted, fun and something like that, why not then having serious books all the time or serious podcasts find yourself absolutely people forget about themselves in business. Yeah, no, you're You're absolutely right. And I think reading a story book is as important, if not more important, than actually reading business books. Dane. What you indulging at the moment. I'm not reading business books though, but I'm not. I need to do more of that. I started reading a thriller very recently. Can't remember what it is because I stopped reading it and the whole story has gone out of my head. So I need to start all over again, since you know, you get completely waylaid by social media, by the tablet, by looking at the news. But what am I doing? My mother passed away two and a half three years ago now, and she left me a whole collection of her political books. She was interested in politics, and They've been sitting there on the shelf and I've not been reading them. I mean across all different parties. So I've started reading that Margaret Thatcher, she's got that whole truptrialology of Margaret Thatcher books. But she's got EO power, she's got one of the Labor Party guys who used to be a postman. She's got Barack Obama. So I've started reading these, reading these books. And I started with Margaret Thatcher because I found I found I always found her fascinating. But yeah, so that's what I've been starting to do. It's start reading. It's dipping and yeah that's good. What's an interesting topic? Yeah? Absolutely, while they're all there, there's probably about three hundred of them. Yeah you go where that to keep you going for a while? Yep. Unfortunately, because my iPad and my phone are all engaged in videoing. At the moment, I can't look up. I can't look this up. I can pop it into the notes later, though. So I'm reading a book at the moment. I'm listening to it on Audible, and it's a nonfiction book, but it's actually about writing fiction stories. So it's quite interesting. It's how stories are woven together and why our brains were sort of hook into this, the biology, if you like, behind our brain's hooking into a story. And you know, it's one of the things that I'm very often saying to people when they are exhibiting, is you know, share your story now, all right, This is a slightly different technique, you know, this is this is about writing books that people hook into. So it's about writing fiction books and stories whereas you know, but in many respects that the core principle is the same that people are interested in stories, they want to hear your story. Don't come and tell people what you do. Don't worry about having hundreds of Leeflet's designed and printed. Just actually share your story as your starting point. And I was also as I was listening to this, thinking about it in the context of actually setting goals and maybe writing a story for moving forwards. I'm finding a way that I can actually do this, because sometimes people have trouble setting goals and planning forwards. But I thought maybe I could tell the story of my life, not backwards, but where it's going actually as a story that's unfolding, and the different chapters and what's coming up and what I want to come up. There's a little bit of actually, this is what's happening right now. So right now I'm looking at how the radio show and the radio station and all that sort of thing can change. Well, okay, I could write a story about that and where is it going? Instead of having just a goal, let's do it as a bit more of a narrative. But what you're doing there is you're involving everybody else, and also that that motivates you. But also you've opened your mouth and said this is where we're going. It's just it keeps you on just. A different it's just a different to me. I'm not sure it is a different approach to everybody else generally, but for me, it's a different approach. And here's a goal of I don't know, you're going to do this and have this many listeners this many exhibitors and this much income or whatever with actually telling a story about my journey, my business journey and where my business is going. So I can't remember the name of the book, but that's it. If you go and look on audible you probably find it. It's read that helps, it's. Red and it's got a white head on it ahead something about stories. So there you go right then onwards to tall. So what are you using at the moment, what are you recommending? Well, it's interesting you should say about AI. I've got a friend who's actually she's she's actually does sales marketing and she's actually selling her own sort of branding on AI in regards to AI of yourself, So videos about yourself. So actually you're you become your A, Your AI becomes you, and it does you like you are and moves like you, and it takes you know, it's you know, So if you're doing like social Instagram and stuff like that, how do you know they're not all some of them are not AI. They're probably AI lead. But that's what she does. She does AI approach. It's like your avatar, but but on you, it's actually you. I quite like that idea. I don't like fighting out the exactly well, I think you need to have you need to have those ideas to start with. You know. One of the things I found about using AI is you know, yeah, all right, you may be able to get it to write a book, but it's not going to be a good book. It has to be you have to be in there going no not that this exactly and that. I always like to think of it as I'm not doing stuff by AIM you, I'm doing stuff with AI exactly that. So it's putting up ideas like as if you were blogging, but your AI actually talks it it is you about the AIU. And she she owns a vip stars that's her company name, Katira name is and she's in Malta, and she's been doing things like this with you know, lots of marketing and social people around the world. In fact, she's been in Forbes, she's been in magazines like Vogue and stuff like that, and based on her products, and I just thought it was really interesting thing. I was like, how can I make that work for me? And so yeah, and the sign up wasn't really that expensive to be I think it was like ninety nine dollars for the year. I mean, what's that when you got all this sort of material. I might have to go and have I might have to go and have a look at that because I don't like although we're videoing else today, I don't like seeing myself on camera and film. I just don't. So that's my challenge. But that, Yeah, so you could be standing on a plane or getting on a plane, you could be doing anything. You could be walking in Paris and talking and not actually physically do you say, you know what I mean? Honesty just yeah, in the wine bar, in. The wine bar. Yeah, let's sit in the wine bar with a glass and you can't make it. But I think to some extent that sort of thing you're talking about, honesty is only dishonest when you're using it for the wrong purpose. So if you're standing in front of a great big car, or you're getting on a plane and you're going, hey, I sold this, I did that, I made this, I bought this investment program, and this is what I've got. Whereas if you're doing it as a not necessarily tongue in cheek, but if you're doing it as information and this is what I thought, you're and you're being honest about it and maybe making a bit of a joke about it or saying, you know, you know, I'm love to be I'm walking around Paris, Isn't it lovely? I'd love to be doing that. As long as you're not using it for dishonest purposes, I don't think it really matters. No, it's sort of okay, yeah. Because it's marketing tool. You just use it as a marketing tool. You haven't got time, so let your AI you do it for you, so you can go off and do your other. But you also have to think about why would you I can know why I would choose to be walking around Paris, and I would bring that into what I was doing exactly. But I have to have been to Paris to know that. There has to be a sentiment behind what I'm doing. There has to be a story behind what I'm doing. I'm thinking along the lines of if you're all consultant, you know, you could be talking about places romantic and stuff like that, and if you're getting on a plane, it could be in aviation and you're talking about stuff with aviation. So the clients that she works with a kind of those kind. Of you can use it authentically because you may want to say something atually quite quickly. Something might have opened in Paris, there might be something that's happening that you want to talk about, but you're not in a position to get on a plane and go there. Now, I think there are all sorts of authentic ways that you can use it exactly. So that's vip stars. What about you. I can always send a link well, I apart from chatting to chat DBT that I've called Einstein. Yours is called Einstein, Mine's called Fenn, Mine's called SAM. I have. Mine's pretentious for. A long time to have CRM because I've got business card coming out of my ears and stuff. But also I've had lots of demonstrations from different AI can do this, it can do this, and my problem is that I don't kind of visualize exactly how that can work. But for example, in sales software, AI software that can make cold calling and leads for me that doesn't kind of ring true. And I but I now have a piece of software called go Engauge, which is a CRM system. It is, it does, it can do newsletters. I'd like to talk to you. Shan't because with your expertise, maybe you can give me a steer about how good it is and go on, and it's going to create the other day I said, I need to start a community because going back to what we were talking about having the communities keeping keeping customers focused, keeping helping customers to interact with others to use their different services, and this system does it as well. So next week I'm having a complete demonstration on how that could possibly work for me in my business. Wow, and that's go engage. I am. So my tools are. It's still at the moment and has been for a while, something called craft Craft, which is with the c Now, if you think this is probably the best I can describe it as is it's like Notion, where it's pages within pages and you can I don't know, organize things by toggles and that sort of thing. So if you think Notion, okay, but it doesn't have quite as many moving parts as Notion. I spent weeks in Notion programming databases. Weeks. It went on and on and on. I mean, they were wonderful. They will work, they will linked together. They were stupendous. The thing is, nobody could work them apart from me. I had a lovely time. I've got nothing done for months. So Craft is a little bit like that, but it's a lot simpler. And one of the things I learned with it with my brain is to have everything in one place, is to not have three hundred and fifty contexts, three thousand labels, different colors, moving parts, you know, sort of gears, levers, and goodness knows what else is going on. So I've sort of at the moment put my management all in one place on one document in Craft, and I found that the way that it's organized actually enables me to do that, and that I can also share those documents with other people in my team, and that you can edit in real time as well. Okay, so it's actually a really nice little tool. Like Trello. No no, So Trello works based on cards, which is really really handy depending on what you want to do. But it is very card So it's based If you think cards, it's little bits that you can move around from one place to another. It's not. It's not so if you think a card could represent, it could be an entire project, or it could be a task in a project, and so it can be very sort of a lot of these things can be very multi layered, and you can sort them out by documents, projects, tasks, subtasks, sub subtasks, contexts, and there are lots of different ways and lots of different depths that you can take these things too. And sometimes that's actually the problem is if you're not careful, you can just seriously overcomplicate everything. And what I've done is strip the whole thing right back to say is strip the whole thing right back to say, Okay, there's one place where you go to and everything is in there. So very very quickly we are going to do very like one lineup word for the month, advice for the month ahead, very quickly, what's your advice for the month ahead. And delegate if you get stuck. Okay, your advice for the month ahead, where's the button? My advice for the month ahead is see much. If you're organizing yourself, keep it in one space, don't have too many moving bits and pieces and try it out and see how that works. So I'm Sean Murphy. This has been the Women in Business radio show, a co host Adelle and Jane Martin. We will see you. We will be back at all some point in the future. I think it's a couple of weeks, isn't it. We'll be back and we'll have another episode of the Women in Business radio show. I have fun out there for now. Bye bye bye