From Buyer to Design Collective Founder

From Buyer to Design Collective Founder Success Story > From: Job To: Startup From Buyer to Design Collective Founder “I'd talked about setting up on my own for years, but I was always too nervous to take the leap of faith.” * From Buyer to Design Collective Founder Emily Mayne's trip to Australia introduced her to a new style of working that left her feeling driven and energised. So, she decided to launch her own business to enable her to carry on working in the same way. Here's how she navigated a steep learning curve to create a career on her own terms. What work were you doing previously? For the last 15 years I've worked in the design and interiors industry as a retail buyer specialising in furniture and lighting for well-known department stores in the UK. This involved managing a team to deliver new collections every four to six months to a nationwide store chain of 180 shops. I was responsible for the department's vision and strategy, and I oversaw the design process, quality, price architecture and store display. Around six years ago I took the opportunity to have a two-year sabbatical, working in Australia as a retail and design consultant for a number of interior boutiques and brands. What are you doing now? Last year I founded someday designs â€" an online interior and lifestyle store. I'm a pioneer of modern, minimal living and have created a space to showcase a beautiful collection of relaxed, understated furniture and homewares. Working as a design collective, I am both a collaborator and maker, passionate about supporting and working with emerging and renowned British and Scandinavian designers, as well as crafting thoughtfully designed in-house collections. How did you feel in your work before you decided to make the change? Having experienced working with small, independent brands in Australia, I found the transition back to my more corporate retail role extremely difficult. I missed being able to make decisions and implement them quickly, as well as the energy and drive I gained working with entrepreneurs and small business owners. In contrast, once back in the UK I worked on collections for months that were often compromised by the time they launched due to the number of people and processes involved. This felt incredibly frustrating. Why did you change? I'd talked about setting up on my own for years, but I was always too nervous to take the leap of faith required. I was totally inspired during my sabbatical â€" working with individuals who had an idea or passion and were building this into a business gave me invaluable experience and confidence that I could do it myself. When was the moment you decided to make the change? I was on maternity leave with my son, Teddy, and started to explore return-to-work opportunities in my previous role and industry. My options were rather limited as I wanted more flexible working hours and less international travel. It didn't seem like this was going to be possible. I was keen to achieve a better work-life balance as a family and just felt the timing was right to set up on my own. Whilst being a business owner is an all-consuming role, the benefit of being able to work where and when I needed to, and the opportunity to build something of my own, was too appealing! How did you choose your new career? Setting up an interiors brand and shop felt like a natural extension to my interests, experience and expertise. This connection to the work has proved invaluable: it takes a lot of commitment and motivation to keep a business going, so working on something I love has helped to push me forward. Are you happy with the change? Absolutely. It's a great feeling to see my business evolve in front of me, and the excitement of receiving orders, building relationships with customers and seeing my designs at exhibitions is unbeatable. Though of course, there are days when I feel overwhelmed; I worry I can't stay on top of it all! What do you miss and what don't you miss? I definitely underestimated how isolating it can be working from home and without a team. I miss sharing ideas with colleagues, and the energy you gain from working with people â€" the fact that you can face the challenges and the victories together. I've started to try to fit in more networking and meetings in person, whether in town or at the house. More and more our home is becoming an open studio, which is working â€" I love the more personal approach. I certainly don't miss the office politics and processes that can slow down progress and productivity. It's so refreshing to have an idea or concept that I can work on and turn around in a short space of time! How did you go about making the shift? I began working on the brand concepts and values first. I attended lots of design fairs to build up my collaborator portfolio, alongside working on an e-commerce site which I customised and built myself. From there I launched the online shop relatively quickly as I was keen to test it to get feedback and insights on how users would interact with it. Once the site was established, my focus turned to our in-house sofa collection. I've partnered with a workshop that I produced with previously (which helped as we already knew how each other worked and that our taste levels and design values were aligned). Then it was a case of photographing the collection, and organising all the marketing collateral, to launch the business at designjunction during London Design Festival last year. What didn't go well? What wrong turns did you take? I put myself under immense pressure to launch our brand plus a new collection during a short space of time. Inevitably there were challenges along the way, such as the sofas being slightly delayed and our photography studio changing our dates, which in isolation would have been manageable but as time was so restricted it made the experience very stressful. I'd like to think that for my next launch I'd allow more time and contingency so that if things didn't quite go to plan I'd have a bit of breathing space and flexibility built in. How did you handle your finances to make your shift possible? I am self-funding the whole thing with our life savings! Fortunately, my husband is an accountant so he keeps a close eye on spending which helps. Being able to do as much as possible myself helps keep running costs and overheads low, so our business model has been built on a lean cost framework. Saying that, we'll happily splurge on pop ups, exhibitions and the sampling of in-house collections as these all add value to the business and help us to grow. What was the most difficult thing about changing? I think it's accepting that tasks can take longer as I don't have a dedicated team to rely on. Learning to pace myself and being extremely resourceful are important. What help did you get? My husband has proved to be a never-ending listener and sounding board for me. He offers great commercial wisdom and endless support so I am very lucky to have him. I reached out to friends and family for feedback on the site and for user trials. I've also benefited from their many talents â€" some friends are in branding, some in marketing, others in tech â€" their time and expertise have been vital. As I became more established and required more specialist help, I employed a couple of freelance experts on a project basis to help with image retouching, web coding and marketing collateral. It's best to work with freelancers who support small businesses as they'll often apply discounted rates knowing you have limited budget and resources, and as a result tend to go above and beyond as they care about you and your brand. What resources would you recommend to others? Online researching is a great resource. Start with selecting a handful of key competitors and learn from what they are doing well or could improve on. I read The Lean Startup by Eric Ries in the early days of setting up and found this very insightful. I have a tendency to want everything to be perfect before going live; however this book taught me the advantages of testing out a model or strategy as quickly as possible to gain insights, allowing me to pivot and adapt the business where necessary. Also the book Do Purpose, by David Hieatt, was very thought provoking. It helps you evaluate the purpose behind your brand, which enables you to connect more with your customers. I am a member of Enterprise Nation, which offers great support for start-ups and has lots of webinars, networking events that you can attend to meet like-minded entrepreneurs, and make useful contacts. Business Model Canvas is a great and simple business plan framework which allows you to note down the key elements of your business on one page. If you are looking at setting up an e-commerce site then I'd recommend Shopify. It's a great hosting platform with lots of templates that you can select from and customise to suit your vision and brand identity. I've heard Squarespace is good too, so it's worth investigating both. Do also look into what your local council can offer. Here in Greenwich there is South East Enterprise, which runs free workshops on search engine optimisation, social media, etc. and through the Greenwich Business Engagement Team (ELBP), I've been awarded four hours of free mentoring time. I've recently joined an e-commerce Facebook group dedicated to business owners in the food, interior and lifestyle industries. It's a great forum for sharing ideas and strategies as well as encouraging each other along the way. Monocle 24's The Entrepreneurs podcast series has interviews with the most inspiring people, companies and ideas in business. It's definitely worth a listen. What have you learnt in the process? I feel like I've been on a steep learning curve, both from a business and personal point of view. I've learnt how important it is to reach out to people and ask for help (and it's something I'm still trying to improve on!). You can't do it all and whether it's asking a trusted friend's opinion or a local business owner for advice or mentorship, building relationships is key. As a start-up, it's essential to get people on board who believe in your potential and support what you do. I've also learnt how crucial self-care is when you're self-employed, as work can take over. I recently joined an eight-week course in mindfulness to help me create some mental space between my business and home life. I'm not suggesting everyone should take to meditation, but taking a bit of time out to gain perspective, however you do that, can work wonders. What would you advise others to do in the same situation? If you feel that you have a business in you, then go for it. Get started. Try not to perfect and overthink everything; it's much better to get going and learn along the way. Ensure you can financially afford to take a cut in pay (for a few years!). If you can't then look into investment options, or appeal to your employer to reduce your hours so that you can free up a couple of days a week to dedicate to your business whilst still being able to cover your living expenses. Whatever your business idea is, make sure you are passionate about it and know your brand values. But build in flexibility within your model, allowing you to change and adapt as the business grows. To find out more about Emily's business, visit www.somedaydesigns.co.uk. What lessons could you take from Emily's story to use in your own career change? Let us know in the comments below.

How to Be More Persuasive

How to Be More Persuasive All business communication is persuasive communication. Whether you’re in sales, business development, advertising, PR, or another persuasive profession, or leading a team, creating policies, or recruiting, you’re working on persuading someone else to take action. Influence is a book about how to be more persuasive, written by Robert Cialdini, Ph.D., who admits in the introduction that he wanted to research how and why he became such a patsy. “For as long as I can recall,” he writes, “I’ve been an easy mark for the pitches of peddlers, fundraisers and operators of one sort or another.” You may feel the same way. After all, for every persuader, there is (at least one) persuaded. Often, many more. Cialdini spends plenty of time explaining how persuasive techniques work and why they’re so effective on all of us (you are not alone.) I’ll help you understand how easy it can be to be more persuasive â€" and why such simple techniques work so well, even on smart people like yourself. Lesson one in being more persuasive: give a reason. It doesn’t have to be a compelling reason, or even a good reason; just adding “because” to your request makes it more likely that someone will actually do what you ask.  In a behavioral experiment, researchers asked to cut into a line of people waiting to use the copier in a library. The researcher asked in two different ways: “Excuse me, I have 5 pages; may I jump in to use the copier?” and “Excuse me, I have 5 pages; may I jump in to use the copier? Because I’m in a rush.” The results were remarkable; 94 percent of people let her cut in line when she gave a reason, compared to only 60 percent when she gave none. If you’re a parent who hates having to give reasons for tasks that should be self-evident, you might want to reconsider (and retire “because I said so” from your lexicon forever.) The researcher found that the quality of the reason really didn’t matter; she got nearly the same rate of compliance when she simply restated her purpose. She tested “Excuse me, I have 5 pages; may I jump in to use the copier because I need to make copies?” and received 93 percent compliance. The most important word in the sentence was “because,” not what followed it. Cialdini says that we comply with requests automatically based on cues in part because we simply can’t process everything we encounter on a conscious level. The world is simply too complex. We need some cognitive shortcuts to save our brain processing power for more important issues.   It’s why we pick the same brand off the shelves at the store time after time, or order the same breakfast at the deli. One of these cognitive shortcuts, for example is a coupon. We have been conditioned as adult consumers to understand that coupon = better deal. A company Cialdini cites in the book found out how effective coupons can be. A tire company mailed out coupons that, due to a printing error, offered a price no different than the usual price for a service. The coupon produced the same return rate as another batch that correctly offered a significant discount.   The coupon itself was the trigger, apparently, not the actual price. Cialdini says that savvy marketers understand how to use the cognitive shortcuts and triggers to get us to make buying decisions on automatic pilot. More on these techniques in future posts.

Language of Appreciation Quality Time

Language of Appreciation Quality Time “Thanks â€" you did a great job today.”     Most people think words are the right way to thank someone for a job well done.   But not everyone is motivated by words of praise, no matter how heartfelt.   For some people, it’s time spent with you that tells them that they matter. Gary Chapman and Paul White are the authors of The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace.   Their book discusses why appreciation is one of the most important elements of employee motivation and satisfaction.   That sounds elementary, and perhaps it is.   Everyone, after all, wants workers to feel appreciated. The art is in figuring out how to make an individual feel it; the same kind of appreciation can have very different effects on different people. Ive been writing about the five “languages” of appreciation that Chapman and White examine.   They’re based on the Five Love Languages that Dr. Chapman developed as a marriage counseling tool.   The five languages are:  Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, and Physical Touch.   In the workplace, Dr. Chapman and Mr. White take these concepts and apply them to office relationships. Quality time people plan activities that bring the team together: supervisors who organize pot luck lunches or take the team out for coffee after the conference are showing their appreciation in this tangible way.   If you have a team member or manager who tends to connect by dropping by for a chat, pay attention to this signal; it’s easy to get it wrong.   Some managers tend to view requests for quality time as intrusive, or as asking for “friendship” instead of affirmation.   Likewise, some workers don’t necessarily want to spend face to face time with their managers; they’d rather focus on getting work done.    If you get that signal from a worker, its okay.   Its not personal; they just dont speak your language. This particular language is fraught with landmines.   Organizational behavior experts  often cite  how destructive perceptions can be about those who are “in” and those who are “out” in the workplace.   Spending quality time with some workers can send a signal that they are somehow more important than others.   Even people who don’t necessarily value quality time might start to resent not getting it. If you do spend quality time with your team, make sure you fully engage.   The definition of quality time  is having  your complete attention; this is not the time to be checking your Blackberry or your watch.     Practice the art of really listening to what people say, including listening for the emotions behind the words. Watch body language carefully; listen for tension in someones voice.   “It sounds like the new project is making you feel a little nervous â€" are you worried about the delivery date?”   Staff members may not tell you outright, but may be relieved if you are perceptive enough to sense what they’re feeling and make it all right to discuss it.   Chapman and White recommend that you affirm negative feelings, even if you don’t agree with conclusions.   “I understand how the new policy would make you feel less trusted; I might feel that way myself if I were in the field. But it’s really about making sure we’re responsible about our network security and data management.” You can show empathy at the same time that you clarify issues. The authors say that the average person listens only 17 seconds before interrupting with a response or a rebuttal.   See if you can stay engaged; make it a policy not to interrupt anyone during quality time.   You’ll be surprised at how challenging it is to just sit and listen â€" and at how much it’s appreciated by staff.

How to Save Time Choosing the Right Topic for Your Book - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

How to Save Time Choosing the Right Topic for Your Book - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Once youve made a commitment to writing a nonfiction to build your brand and advance your career, whether youre working for someone else or own your own business, the next step is to choose the right topic, perspective, or approach, for your book. Your choice of topic is critical. Weve all graduated from high school or college, where the majority of our reading was in textbooks containing a smorgasbord of information we were expected to master and be able to recite. Todays readers are in a hurry; theyre looking for the shortest, least-expensive book that will help them quickly solve a problem or achieve a goal. You, too, are looking for the fastest way to achieve your goal! Selecting a topic is the first, necessary, step you must take before moving on to choosing a memorable title and organizing the contents of your book. Heres a simple 3-step process to select the right topic: Start by identifying 8 possible approaches. Make a list of 8 different approaches for your book. Each approach should be based around an easily-stated big idea that targets a desired type of reader (i.e., market segment), identifies the problem or goal youre going to address, and positions your book apart from existing books on the topic. Let the ideas flow freely, but be brief. Limit yourself to using just a few sentences to describe each of the 8 possible approaches. Select the 3 best approaches. Set your list of 8 approaches aside overnight. The next day, review your 8 possibilities and select the 3 best approaches. (Dont throw away your rejected alternatives, but save them in a way that will allow you to go back to them later, if needed.) Select the best of the top 3 alternatives. Once again, set your choice aside overnight, and review it the next day. If youre still enthusiastic about your choice, dont try to come up with more ideas, but advance to the next steps of choosing a tentative title and table of contents (or chapter plan) for your book. If, however, at any point, youre not totally satisfied you have made the right choice, simply repeat the 3-step process all over again, by identifying 8 more possible topics, narrowing them down to 3, and, again, selecting the best of the 3. Benefits of this approach to selecting a topic Intelligent people are often overwhelmed by good ideas and strong possibilities. Their wealth of options and good ideas can create a paralysis of choice that keeps them from ever taking meaningful action. Instead of exploring an approach that might work, they continue to come up with more good ideas. More good ideas, of course, only makes things worse! An overabundance of unexplored topics can prevent even the most qualified individuals from ever writing a brand-building book. New book topic ideas are always going to turn up. Successful authors, however, are those that quickly triage their ideas and commit to moving forward by exploring the best possible approach. Change during the writing and editorial possible is inevitable; its foolish to wait until you have chosen the perfect approach before moving forward. Get started by choosing a topic and moving forward on your path to writing and publishing a book that drives business and builds your brand. Author: Roger C. Parkers goal is to help you save time writing a book to build your brandand he wants you to enjoy more profits than most authors do. Roger has written more than 30 books and interviewed hundreds of successfully branded nonfiction authors. He   shares what he’s learned in free weekly teleseminars announced at Published Profitable and in his daily writing tips.

How Realtors, Brokers and Real Estate Agents Can Use Resume Writing Services in San Francisco

How Realtors, Brokers and Real Estate Agents Can Use Resume Writing Services in San FranciscoRealtors, brokers and real estate agents can use resume writing services in San Francisco. The range of services they offer is massive.A job seeker should have a lot of experience in corporate work, if he or she wants to be hired by the corporations. The professionals can use resume writing services in San Francisco for this purpose. They can prepare a candidate for an interview. They can also train the candidate on resume writing techniques.Realtors, brokers and real estate agents can use resume writing services in San Francisco. They can get the skills of candidates who need to get employment with a corporation in the field of real estate. The talent is a necessity to get work in this field.Anyone looking for career advancement in the field of real estate can use resume writing services in San Francisco. The candidates can learn about the steps required to be taken before a candidate gets e mployment with a corporation. The candidates can learn how to fill in applications without a paper trail. They can learn about e-mail and how to promote themselves online.There are many graduates who are looking for career advancement in the field of real estate. The graduates may not be fluent in English. However, they can still learn the skills of getting the employment by using resume writing services in San Francisco. The professionals can also help in training the candidates.The employees can use resume writing services in San Francisco to prepare a candidate for a job interview. The candidates can learn about the rules and regulations related to getting an interview. They can also know about networking and other promotional methods.A real estate agent can use resume writing services in San Francisco to prepare a candidate for a job interview. He or she can learn how to fill in an application form without any paper trail. The candidates can learn about real estate education and about buying real estate.A real estate agent can use resume writing services in San Francisco to have a prospective client contact him or her. The candidates can learn about marketing and about how to set up a good office. The professional can use this information to help the candidates get jobs.

Does Your Work Conflict With Your Authentic, Core Values If So, Youll Struggle - Kathy Caprino

Does Your Work Conflict With Your Authentic, Core Values If So, Youll Struggle As a career coach, I’ve found it’s ever so clear when people are working out of alignment with their core values. It can be a miserable and even devastating experience. Interestingly, unhappy professionals often know something is terribly wrong, but can’t pinpoint exactly what is making them feel so disrespected, undervalued and unappreciated. In many cases, it’s a serious clash in values. I lived this for years in my corporate life, not really understanding the root cause of my deep discomfort and dissatisfaction â€" that the values I held dear were not able to be honored in my work.  In several jobs, I felt that my employers’ behavior, mission and culture clashed fiercely with what I held to be good, true and respectable. And for me, finding a halfway meeting point in these cases just wasn’t possible. What can we do when this situation arises? Excited to learn more about values clarification and how we can honor our values in our work and transform our lives, I caught up this week with Karen Kimsey-House. One of the earliest recognized luminaries in the coaching profession, Karen is CEO and Co-Founder of The Coaches Training Institute (CTI), a highly respected coach training organization. Karen is also is a blogger for The Huffington Post and the co-author of Co-Active Coaching, the best-selling coaching resource, now in its third edition. A successful entrepreneur committed to pioneering Co-Activity in challenged environments and troubled populations, Kimsey-House continues to lead CTI workshops and is a dynamic keynote speaker around the world. Here’s Karen’s take on values: Kathy Caprino: What’s important about identifying your own personal values as an employee, as distinct from the organization’s declared values? Karen Kimsey-Kimsey-House: The experience of disengagement and, worse, burn out, is often attributed to a culture of long hours in which discretionary effort is expected without acknowledgement. However, what is more likely the case is that individual employees feel disconnected from the organization because they have no reference point, or internal compass of their own, by which to consider and evaluate the company’s stated values and purpose. Most people really want to contribute. They long to be useful and feel they are a part of something larger than themselves. Knowing our values provides a pathway to make that contribution in a meaningful way. From there, as the individual’s values are re-affirmed by the organization it self, true engagement is possible. Caprino: What are the top three  ways of identifying and clarifying your values? Kimsey-Kimsey-House: There are many ways to identify your values, but one powerful way is to focus on identifying qualities or virtues which were present during times of success or expansion in your life, or, absent during times of failure or contraction. Ask yourself these questions: When were your values most alive? Review several peak experiences to identify those virtues, behaviors or qualities which were most present when you were most alive and self expressed. When were they missing? Review setbacks or failures in your life, but this time ask yourself which virtues, qualities or behaviors were missing, which would have made a difference to the outcome. In the world, who demonstrates values that inspire you? To really dig deep into what’s most important to you, look out into the world at large, and ask what’s missing in the conduct of someone who challenges you the most, or what’s present in someone who’s inspires you. It’s these values, which are likely to be those you’ll be most willing to take a stand for. Once you have identified a range of values, the next step is to clarify how they are unique to you. (Downloadour clarification exercise to help.)  Remember, although some values are universal, what makes values distinct from morals is they are defined by how you choose to express them. The value of ‘adventure’ for example, may be expressed by one individual completely differently from another. Caprino: Karen, how can we enliven and honor our values, so we continue to grow as we progress as a professional and an employee? Kimsey-House: The best way to do this is to recognize the intrinsic relationship between your personal values, and how you fulfill your potential as a leader within the organization. Of course, if you assume the only person who can be a leader is ‘the boss’ this won’t serve you. However, if you recognize that leadership can also be defined as ‘our capacity to take responsibility for the world around us,’ then everyone within an organization has the potential to lead, even at a junior level. By definition,  embracing our leadership must begin within, with a better understanding of who I am, and the values that I take a stand for. This can become a set point for shaping a guiding purpose to serve the greater growth of the world around me â€" in this case the organization. Caprino: What happens when we’re working with people who value different things and there’s a big clash? What can we do to align our values with the different values of our colleagues, to enhance collaboration? Kimsey-House:   Aligning your values with the values of another requires a willingness to see where they overlap, rather than focus on the places where they might conflict.   That’s the first step towards establishing the common ground on which you can collaborate. For example while one colleague may value order and process highly, and the other spontaneity and creative flair, (which could be perceived as a source of conflict), nevertheless there is a clear point of alignment around the fact that both honor self-expression. To really be successful, this kind of conversation will need to be rooted in a shared commitment to serve the organization’s (and each other’s) greater good, and may benefit from the use of some basic coaching skills such as deep listening, acknowledgement, and powerful questions. Caprino:  What can we do when we discover that some or even all of our values are not congruent with the values represented by the organization’s purpose, mission and culture? Kimsey-House: Having our personal values persistently trashed or ignored is never life affirming , and can be a truly horrible experience. If this happens to you as an employee, it would be understandable if you decided to leave the organization. However, as an employee willing to embrace his/her own leadership, this disconnection between the personal and collective, could be something to be curious about. Conflict or disagreement is often an opportunity for deeper understanding and or creativity, and so it’s quite possible that the values you uphold personally are exactly what the organization itself requires to evolve. In this way, knowing our own values is foundational to our ability to boldly step forward and bravely speak the unspoken. As you articulate what you perceive is missing, you’ll see whether the organization is willing to transform, resistant to change, or happy with the status quo. Either way you’ll have new information to assess against the compass of your personal values, before you decide upon your next action. For more info, visit CTI and download two chapters of Co-Active Leadership. To build a value-aligned career, join The Amazing Career Project  course this Fall, and take my Action Style quiz.

Business Cards- Get em Now

Business Cards- Get em Now New employees are sometimes handed a box of business cards. Why? Theyll need them. They will go to events and meet people, they will meet with clients or customers, they will be representing the company at an event. Your role as a job seeker is to treat this like a real job, so get yourself business cards. You will need them. Writing out all your contact information is time consuming. You can give them out at events/seminars/meetings You can provide them to new or oldfriends you run into Because you are on a budget, you will want to be frugal, but not cheap. Dont sacrifice quality. Shop around and find a good deal. Check on-line. You can find them for under $10 for 250 color printed. (vistaprintdotcom) What do you put on them? Simple: Your name, phone number, email and job title you are pursuing. Thats all you need. There was a great discussion about what job title to put on your card in a workshop yesterday. While there are different strategies and logic here, my thoughts would be to put something specific rather than too general. For example, I dont think Strategic Leader, Creative Problem Solver, Diligent Negotiator are helpful to anyone as job titles. However, I do think it might be ok to list several job titles, for example COO, General Manager, VP of Operations. What I am not recommending is using varying different types of jobs, such as Human Resources or Customer Service or Accountant, this isnt good branding. Dont be all things to all people. The title has to be just descriptive enough. Listing Project Manager, doesnt say what kind of project manager. Consider adding the industry too. Project Manager, Software Development.