I'm on Google+ and as far as I can see, it's another big fat fail by Google, just like Google wave.  

"Google wave?" You may ask, and that's exactly my point!

I already have 3 social media platforms that I use, that meet my needs, socially, professionally, and as a business marketing tool, why should I use Google+?  At the moment, it's purely for research, so that I can advise my clients exactly what it does & it's potential when integrated into an overal social media marketing strategy. 

But what's happening on Google+ at the moment?
Social media experts are discussing it's potential value.  Other than that, not a lot else!

Without the functionality to migrate profile data from Facebook/Linked In I don't see how Google will be able to migrate people over.  There was an app/plug in to do just that, and Facebook blocked it pretty much instantly.  There isn't a big enough incentive for people to put in all that effort, when they already have what they want. 

I got tired just adding my gmail contacts into circles, as there wasn't a quick way to do it, and once I'd "dropped" a person into a circle, they disappeared from my list, meaning I couldn't add them to another, except by searching for them another way and adding them to a list by "ticking boxes".

Google are techy nerds, they do NOT understand social, they don't know how to lay out easy to use functionality.
Google's best social product is YouTube, and the only reason they have that is because they bought it out once it had been fully developed into what it is today.

Even Bing are very close on their tail- with Senior people in Google admitting that their search results are often better/more accurate than Google.

I love Google, they've done so much to create & shape the internet as we know it, but Google+ has a LOT of development to be done before it can compete with Facebook.  Right now it doesn't have any functionality that isn't available elsewhere.  The circles are an improvement on Facebook lists, but even those are poorly thought out with regard to functionality/ ease of use.

Google have failed to transition into being the big corporate that it now is, and stay ahead of the field, they're not at the cutting edge any longer, they're chasing the tails of others. 

Google is known for being a great place to work, however in reality their people management/recruitment practices leave LOTS to be desired.  They hire HIGHLY skilled internet developers/ coders- put them  on teams that don't give them the freedom to use their knowledge & skills to their fullest, don't pay them as much as they would be earning out on their own & provide limited opportunity for talented staff to be promoted. 

I do love their search, and I do, very much LOVE Google Chrome, however I am more than a little uncomfortable with the amount of data stored about my internet use, and now I have a Smart phone with Android OS- the recording of my GPS data is also a concern (I turned it off). 

I'll finish up by pleading with Google to STOP chasing other people, go back to the drawing board please. 

Please Google, ask yourself what the NEXT Facebook/Twitter is going to be, what does it need to be?  How will it satiate the desires of the people?  How will it give them what they crave?  

But whatever you do Google, Please, Please PLEASE STOP chasing the coat tails of market leaders, you don't do it that well, and you're just wasting your resources. 

Come on Google, give me something to celebrate & jump for joy about!  Isn't it time you got back to what you did best?  Innovation!!!

If you don't do something innovative soon Google, I'm afraid I will have to get out my black dress (and I don't mean a "little black dress"), and I don't want to have to do that, for one, I hate wearing black, and, well, I LOVE you Google, please don't die on me!!

Yesterday I came across someone selling “7 Success Tips for business” on a YouTube video, I was less than impressed, I stopped watching after 30 seconds because the video was clearly shot at home and the presenter was wearing a long sleeve t-shirt (Not very “businessy” attire).

So I decided to create one of my little #Twips :

#Twip if you're filming a video for YouTube helping people in Business with "tips" at least dress like you're in business- shirt & tie/suit

And I received a few comments about this, which are shown at the end of the blog post, most of which were not in agreement with my twip at all!

Someone who has a different approach to marketing than Brad, and a style that I personally love is @TheSimonJordan he’s smart, stylish, friendly, communicates clearly, with energy & warmth. I guess I must fall into Simon’s target demographic.

My #Twip was to highlight the fact that presentation is absolutely key to connecting with people. If the guy in the video wanted to target people who were working at home, maybe he’s got it right, for me his lack of attention to detail in his own professional presentation turned me off. Sometimes 140 really just isn’t enough to convey a complete message!

Suited Up for Business- The Dragons

What this discussion has done is give me the opportunity to highlight a very key point in marketing- KNOW YOUR customer, know what appeals to your customers, not what appeals to other people’s customers. If you’re selling to the building trade, wearing a suit probably isn’t going to get you much credibility- what would a “suit” understand about laying foundations, dry lining, plastering?

Knowing exactly what expectations your customer has, and what their idea of “credibility” is, is essential to communicating to them effectively. Effective communication to customers creates effective marketing.

What do you think? What styles of presentation do you like for which types of product/services?

For me, I admire the dragons, and am hungry to learn from their examples, and I don’t recall them showing up in the dragon’s den wearing t-shirts. 

So it's International Women's Day again, March 8th every year, what does it mean to you?

My first experience of International Women's Day was in Belfast (1996), I was part of "Creative Women's Workshops" who met regularly for writing, drumming, singing & other creative activities.  We gave a drumming performance in the evening, it was a mixture of Samba & Japanese style drumming, and it was lots of fun!  We also displayed artwork, and I sold my first ever painting- a simple oil painting of a fluffy white cloud.

Then just after my first year in business I co-organised a Women Empowering Women day in the Radisson Hotel Dublin (2008).  We had a range of speakers on a range of topics; nutrition, fashion, beauty, hypnotherapy, thai chi & yoga, and a massage.  I delivered the section on goals and understanding how to set the right goals, and how to make sure we actually achieve them! 

The day was focused on what we as women could do to empower ourselves, make ourselves feel good, so that we could continue doing the work we do, in business & in our homes.  It was a big success, with 50 women enjoying the day; one lady described it as "The best day of my life so far" (She was in her 50's).

This year International Women’s Day sprang up on me by surprise! Having had a bought of glandular fever that knocked me off my feet for a few months, I’m still gradually getting back into the swing of things. So when I saw that @KrishnaDe was organising the #100VoicesBiz project to celebrate 100 years of International Women’s Day I was delighted that here was something that I was able to contribute to. I was honoured to have my tip included, and even luckier for my, my tip is No. 2!

You can see all of the tips on Krishna De’s Biz Growth website, each of them are under 140 characters, so it’s a quick convenient way to access lots of inspiration & wisdom from women who are in business. An inspiring project, and a valuable resource for any woman(or man) thinking of, or already in business.

So what does International Women’s Day mean to me? A day of celebrating who I am, not just as a person, but also of the qualities I have that are because I’m a woman. Also it’s about celebrating other women too, their awesomeness, courage, determination, intelligence, creativity, entrepreneurial spirit, gentleness. And yes, I do think there should be an International Men’s Day too!

Would be great if you'd like to share what it means to you and what you've done over the years, if anything, to join in celebrating being a woman! (If you are one) ;)

I’ll cut straight to the chase; for me the most powerful, most valuable trainings I've ever been on has to be, by a long mile the experiential games created by Clinton Swaine of Frontier Trainings. 

When I first trained with Clinton in July 2007 I felt like I’d gained 3 years worth of experience- in ONE day! It was phenomenal; the experiential games that Clinton uses are unparalleled agents of change.   People that experience the learning’s from them change permanently, for the better!

During the trainings where I first worked with Clinton I was on stage in front of less than 100 people, and I was petrified. So much so that my knees & hands were shaking, my heart felt like it would burst out of my chest at any moment. Standing in front of that many people was a challenging experience for me. Earlier this year I stood on T. Harv Ecker’s stage in front of an audience of over 1,200 people and I felt calm, centred, assured. AND the audience loved what I had to say, because the way in which I was able to communicate, was clear, added value and left an impact. I can honestly say that I owe this to the trainings I’ve been through & the feedback I’ve received from Clinton. People who saw me at the first training, and again on T. Harv’s stage couldn’t believe it was me; the difference was like night & day!

Play To Win is Clinton’s introductory course & is an intensive 3 days of many fun, and challenging games that cover leadership, marketing, team work, communication, branding, sourcing, negotiation, personal development, resource management, to name just a few of the topics you’ll learn about!

I’ve applied what I’ve learned from this training in my own business & I’ve also seen my clients integrate powerful lessons, creating brilliant results.

Frontier trainings is the world leader in Experiential Games Technology, this is training unlike any other. During the 3 days you are fully immersed in the environment, you can’t help but react the way you would in “real life” because the environments created are “real”. The lessons you’ll learn will stick with you for life. If you’ve ever been told you’re too young, or you don’t have enough experience Play To Win is perfect for you!  If you’re an employee right now & are looking to set up on your own, this training is also perfect for you.  If you’re an employee & want to develop your management skills & understanding of business, this course is perfect for you.

Play To Win is not for people who enjoy staying stuck in their chair being talked at from stage, this is an interactive training and your bum will not get chance to become numb!!

So if there is any way at all of getting to London- the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Heathrow the last weekend of October Play To Win is an excellent way to invest your time- developing your business skills beyond the run of the mill, which cannot fail to have a hugely positive impact on business, including the bottom line!

And, even more excellent news is that it’s almost time for his next trainings in London!

On the 29^th-31^st October 200 people will be experiencing Play To Win: Clinton Swaine’s amazing experiential trainings for business owners, investors, property developers, and plenty more who want to be all of the above!

You can book your FREE place on Play To Win here,  

(This is an affiliate link)

Different people like different things. How amazing would it be if you created a product that would be exactly what each individual using it wanted it to be?

How great would it be to find a uniquely common theme by which to market it AND have other people market it for you- free of charge?

That’s exactly what Mark Zuckerberg has created. Genius, sorry, love or hate his personality one must acknowledge the genius of what he’s created.

The Social Network is a movie about Zuckerberg’s story, how Facebook was created, I would suggest taking the accuracy of the story line with a pinch of salt (except for Zuckerberg’s clothes, he testifies to the their accuracy in a Y combinator interview!)

If you have a vision for your business, you must go and see this movie, I dare you not to be inspired by it.

If you want to be entertained.... go and see this movie

If you want to be excited about possibilities that lie before you, lie before us all…. Go and see this movie.

If you like a good belly laugh... go and see this movie.

If you appreciate an awesomely crafted movie… go and see this movie.

To summarise… go and see this movie! 

 Creating a Win- Win - Win situation! What Do You Want to Win?

Just in case I haven’t mentioned to you before, let me share with you; I have a passion for Twitter, I love it.  I love it because I get to connect with so many bright, witty & fun people.

Yesterday I experienced another of the really great things about Twitter-one of my lovely followers @AndrewEmmett asked if I would think about creating competitions for my followers, and get other companies on Twitter to donate prizes.  Which I think is a brilliant idea.  

However, the most important person to tell me if it's a good idea, or not, is you, because you're the one reading this blog post.  You're the one I will be running the competitions for.

So please, tell me what you want, what you really really want!

• What do you want to win? 

I'm thinking some of the prizes could be tickets to my courses, (Dates of which we'll be announcing next week), One to One coaching sessions with myself, and of course goodies like Flip cams, Skype headsets, Domain registration, hosting, things that would be useful for your business.

Please tell me what YOU WANT TO WIN

Sponsorship Opportunities: Also, if you're already running your own business what kind of things could you donate as prizes- a great way to get new customers to experience your products & get a wider exposure.

• What competitions do you want to get involved in?

There will be a monthly competition, so it's a regular opportunity to win something that will be useful & valuable for your business, but what topics do you want to see?

One of the ideas I have is to have a Celebrate Your Success competition- where people post their successes, large or small & winners are chosen from those posts.  The most witty or inspiring successes would of course have the edge.

Or, we could put a case study up from business owners that need help, and the prize will go to the best/most helpful suggestion.  This type of competition creates a win-win-win!  The business gets the help it needs, the person suggesting the help gets to show off their knowledge & expertise & the prize, & the sponsors of the prize get exposure to some of the most inspirational, problem solving business owners around!

Those are just a couple of ideas, I know there are lots of others out there & we could easily do a different theme each month, so let me know what  your ideas are.

Life is exactly as you create it to be, so now's your opportunity to create the prizes & competitions that you want. 

So please, leave a comment below, or tweet me so that you can design the competition & prizes that you really want to win!

I'll keep the discussion open until Tuesday the 15th of June, so that, fingers crossed, we'll have time to run our first competition in June :)

Wow am I starting my Monday morning on a high high HIGH!!

On Saturday night I had the privilege of being on the stage with T.Harv Eker's Millionare Mindset Intensive seminar- I was a "Money Monk".  What's a Money Monk? I hear you ask, well T. Harv describes 4 behaviours regarding money- 

• The Spender
• The Saver
• The Avoider
• The Money Monk

Currency Symbols, do your customers love them, or hate them?

I came across a fascinating article via twitter today and I have to share it with you.

Pricing Lessons From Restaurants from NeuroScienceMarketing.com looked at a study by Sybil S. Yang, Sheryl E. Kimes Ph.D., and Mauro M. Sessarego of Cornell University,

"$ or Dollars: Effects of Menu-price Formats on Restaurant Checks"

I was really amazed at the results and to see such a simple thing (showing currency symbols or not) having such an effect on customers behaviour.

Read the article- if you take it on board, making a few minor changes to your sales pages could result in major increase in profits! 

New Years Ball, New York, Photo Credit New York Times

So, it's new year (almost) and this is a time I traditionally review the previous 12 months, what have I achieved this year?  What changes did I make?  What successes have I enjoyed?

2009 has been a challenge, revenue slowed down as people become more careful about what they chose to spend their money on, and often preferred to keep it as savings as insurance policy against the pending doom & dread that has constantly been in our media.

Personally this year has been one of incredible growth for me, and I celebrate that wholeheartedly.  My life will never be the same again.

On a business front I've learned many, many things, and the most important of which is that my business needs to be more closely aligned to my own authentic voice.

That's what it will be in 2010.  2010 will see a new vision for Management Matters, the services it provides will be more focused.  Focused on providing valuable training & coaching to those businesses that have a vision which benefits our global society positively.  Businesses that leave their clients, communities, families, societies, environment better off.  Businesses that truly have win-win philosophies at their very heart. 

I'll write more about this in the new year, but for now I encourage you to review your year, your business year & your personal year, and write a list of everything (or everything that you can remember) that you did well in 2009.

It's what we succeeded in that builds the foundations for our successful future- lets focus on our successes & celebrate that we survived our failures. 

This last 12 months has been a challenge for me, luckily for me I love a good challenge!  Despite this, there has been times where even though I’ve had successes in my business & my life times have been difficult.  When the opportunity arose to come to Thailand for 3 months - an all expenses paid trip I considered it, researched it for 24 hrs before making my decision, it was just the right thing to do.

Now I'm here, I've enjoyed a few weeks relaxing, which is very well deserved.  I do yoga & go for a swim in the sea every morning, then I have breakfast on the beach, and start work around 9-9.30am.  To round my working day off, and to cool down from the heat I play frisbee in the sea.

My life is blissful, truly blissful and there isn't a day goes by where I don't take a big breath in & really absorb the beauty of it all- filling my heart with gratitude.

I've been doing some coaching daily while I've been here, but the main purpose of this trip is to re-assess my own business goals.  I first set up my business in Nov 2007 and since then I have made a few changes, in response to what my customers wanted & to what I wanted too.

I'm about to approach the next phase.  Up until now I've developed distinct & separate brands which I provide different services from.  I wanted to capture the maximum audience possible & didn't want to alienate potential customers.

I now realise & understand that actually that's going against the principle of niche marketing, despite my thinking I was clever by being able to capitalise on more than one niche!

Many of you reading this may be aware of my other brand- Life Matters, and many will know that I am much more "touchy feely", or "spiritual" even when discussing various matters on that blog.

I am, in my heart of hearts a business woman, doing business is what makes me feel alive.  I also am a deeply spiritual & compassionate human being & have a wide knowledge within the personal development field.  This is what I draw upon when coaching clients.  I cannot truly be authentic without embracing both integral aspects of who I am.

The next phase in my business will openly embrace both aspects of my strengths fully...

Kho Lanta- Thailand (My new office)

I have news Good News I've been dying to tell everyone & now I can!! :)

I have been made an incredibly exciting offer which I will be taking up on the 18th November- I'm going to be working from Thailand for 3 months!!!

I'll still be tweeting, blogging, coaching via Skype & phone but I will also be enjoying sunny beaches & I am SO looking forward to swimming in the sea every day, well at least most days!

I apologise sincerely for those that are green with envy right now, that's not going to stop me being deliriously happy & I do hope you'll join me celebrating!!!

Because I will miss out on celebrating my Birthday (Dec) and Christmas with you all, I'm having Leaving/Birthday/Christmas drinks in The Church on Jervis St Dublin this Saturday night (14th Nov) from 8pm and would love you to come!  

I'm really looking forward to seeing as many people as possible before I head off on my  travels and it will also be kind of a #tweetup because I'd love to meet more people I tweet with before I go!

If you can come please leave a comment for me or tweet me @ClaireBoyles 

I've been tweeting all morning that I've got news to share & tweople are in suspense so I'm about to tweet out the good news now!!! 

It's Monday and reading people's tweets on twitter this morning got me thinking about motivation.  What is motivation?  People are motivated when they know that what they're doing will result in something they enjoy.  

What do you enjoy?  For me I enjoy connecting with people, empowering people, supporting them in achieving what they want from their business, from life.

It's important to understand what it is that you actually enjoy about your business-

Is it the reward of having money come into your bank account?  

Is it producing a product you know is valuable to your customers?  

Is it making sure that your business runs smoothly & efficiently like a well oiled machine?

Is it spreading the word about your services?

Is it receiving feedback from happy customers?

Understanding motivation is even more important when leading a team, managing staff. What motivates one person may be completely off putting to others.

The most critical time this information is needed is at recruitment time.  Understanding what the role requires is essential to ensure you have the right person for the job.  

Sales roles- these are best filled by people who enjoy engaging with new people, enjoy building relationships, enjoy giving the customer what they want.  

Accounting roles?  People who enjoy getting details correct, people who enjoy following systems & making sure everything is in it's right place, these are the people you want to be making sure your accounts balance.

If you understand exactly what it is that motivates you, and your team, what it is that you and they really enjoy you'll be far more likely to achieve your business goals. 

If you're doing something you don't enjoy, it might be time to change your goals.

What motivates you and your team on a Monday? 

Opportunities

This afternoon I went face to face cold calling to a number of businesses that I know I could add value to.  Whilst waiting to speak to the Manager at one of the businesses a delivery man arrived with a box that was heavily wrapped up with masking tape.

As he was unwrapping it I made a friendly comment "Christmas is here then" :) he laughed & said yep- these are the Christmas menus!  I was surprised, I'd just made a quip because he was unwrapping a parcel!  I continued chatting and it turned out that he was EXACTLY the person that I needed to speak to about how I could add value to their business.  We exchanged numbers & I got the opportunity to continue the friendly chat about what I had to offer that would improve his business.

I'd been mulling over the idea of physically going to these potential customers businesses for weeks, but hadn't made a firm decision until I had a discussion with Veronica Canning this afternoon.  Like me Veronica understands how to get the best out of people, how to help them understand what the best decision for them is.  After the conversation with her I was inspired to take positive action, and this has truly paid off already!

I got speaking to Veronica this afternoon because I'd logged onto a webinar she presented with WXN on Wednesday lunchtime.  Veronica had covered material that was familiar to me- but it was a much needed refresher & helped me refocus onto positive outcomes. 

I'll be doing some further research from my chat & doing my follow up call next week.  I'm really looking forward to it as I thrive on new projects & challenges. 

What business idea have you been "Mulling over" in your head?  When are you going to take action on it?  If you act on it, at least you'll know for definite if it was a good idea or not.  Best case scenario- you may just have made a real opportunity open up for yourself!