Electric Trainer

What is ordinary?

An intriguing comment on Radio 4's WATO earlier this week. An interviewee used a phrase which had me running for my notebook. Talking about grammar schools he said:

"The kids who are getting the benefit of selection where there are grammar schools are middle class kids, and there are very few kids from ordinary backgrounds who are getting into these schools."

It made me realise that the word 'ordinary' only has meaning in a relative sense. For the speaker (from an organisation that helps under-privileged children) you are not 'ordinary' if you are middle class. This probably came across as bizarre to listeners to the most middle class radio station on the dial.

But then perhaps middle class is a relative concept too.

Freelance or Small Business?

I had a great day on Friday at the BECTU Theatre Festival in central London. I was running two workshops, both for theatre freelances - one on setting up a web site to sell yourself and the other on business skills.

I meet a lot of freelances in the course of my training, and am always struck how many are reluctant to think of themselves as any kind of business. Some seem to view self-employment almost the same way as having a job, just without the security and with lots of 'down time' (aka poverty).

I don't believe you can be a successful freelance without taking on the mindset of a business. Of course that's different from being a 'company' and perhaps too many people confuse the two terms.

If you think I'm splitting hairs, consider this example: take two identical self-employed people, one a freelance and one a small business. When they're not working on a contract what are they doing?

Whenever I ask people this question the freelance is usually getting up late and watching daytime TV. The small business is out getting more clients or updating his publicity.

It may be just mindset and perception, but that can make all the difference.

Panorama, Scientology and Media Training

John Sweeney's extraordinary contribution to the Scientology debate was strangely fascinating to watch. Animal passion was the term that came to mind - or perhaps just animal frustration.

Unfortunately the knock on effect for those of us in the media training business may not be so positive. I like to work with charities and NGOs. It's rewarding work as I meet so many dedicated and clever people.

At an exhibition for the voluntary section last year I met a lot of people who think that all journalists are rude and bullying, and would prefer not to have anything to do with them.

I find it frustrating that my training often has to start with lots of reassurance to sometimes nervous trainees that they are very unlikely to be trapped, shouted at or in any way Paxmanned.

My view is that media training is about focusing on the message and getting plenty of interview practice. After all, a 2'30" interview is hardly a normal situation. Practice helps you retain your passion for your subject while addressing the subject in question in an unnaturally short period of time. (And I agree with a lot of what Julian Henry wrote recently.)

I suppose John Sweeney has at least provided something to break the ice at the beginning of a training session. Having a good laugh about his outburst might just put trainees at their ease.

Top tip 1 - The unwanted visitor

One of the thing I love about the small business training is meeting so many people with great stories to tell.

I'll be repeating many of them here, and passing on some great tips for smoothing out the bumps of self-employment.

Here's one which was passed on by someone who'd started her new business at home after working for many years at the BBC.

She was re-adjusting nicely to being self-employed, but one thing was getting to her; her friends would see her car in the drive and assumed that she was always in for coffee.

Being a well-brought up kind of person, she found it impossible to tell her friends to get lost. They'd be in the kitchen boiling a kettle before she had a chance to explain that she was in the middle of some work. So how to diffuse the situation?

She decided to leave a file full of old papers next to the front door. Whenever the doorbell rang she'd come to the door, pick up the file and cradle it in a business-like fashion in her left arm. When she opened the door the friend would see the file and say "Oh, sorry. I see you're working now. I just wanted a coffee and a chat. So when would you like to meet?"

She reports that it works every time. She doesn't see her friends any less, but she sees them at a time convenient to her. Briliant.

Got any other tips for home working? I'd love to hear from you.

When simple simply confuses

I spent a fun day at the CIPD annual exhibition last week, helping out the lovely people at Unlimited Potential, a coaching and training company I'm associated with.

One of the reasons the exhibition was so successful for Unlimited Potential was the consistency of the brand message - from the images and wording on the stand to the way we described what we do when we spoke to people, to the layout of the brochures.

We even wore the same purple t-shirts, which made a huge impact and wasn't nearly as embarrassing as it sounds.

The best stand of the whole event was a group who provide team-building exercises in the form of film production. A wonderfully simple idea that was carried through with a stand that was basically a lighting rig. They all wore the same t-shirts too. It was a great example of good branding delivering a simple message.

Another training organisation took the simple approach to an extreme. Their key message was 'we won't waste your money'. They had bought not one but three 'plots' around the exhibition hall and instead of dressing them in the time-honoured (and expensive) fashion, they left them completely empty except for a small pile of brochures. Occasionally someone would be attending the stands. Often they were deserted.

I've no doubt this seemed like a totally genius idea when they came up with it. The trouble was there was no way of knowing that this was supposed to be clever marketing. It just looked like they hadn't turned up.

The Power of Three

A friend of mine is always reminding people of the power of the three-word tag as part of business branding. In fact he's positively evangelical about it. He says we're all pre-wired  to remember things in threes. Any business that doesn't use a three-word slogan is - in his view - missing a trick.

A quick look up and down the high street - or at least the out-of-town retail park - shows he may have a point. Test your friends with these:

• every little helps
• have a break
• Beanz Meanz Heinz (a giveaway that one)
• never knowingly undersold

They don't even have to be in English - Vorsprung durch Technik anyone?

Sainsburys has the rebellious 'try something new today', and therefore (according to my friend) deserves everything it has coming to it. Though it redeems itself slightly by having a premium line called 'taste the difference'.

I read in today's Media Guardian that ads are having to get cleverer. It's something to do with the audiences getting more sophisticated, completely contradicting the argument for dumbing down.

I wonder where this leaves the power of the three-word tag or slogan. My suspicion is that it will never go away. Threesomes are so powerful they have been used for centuries, so I can't see them disappearing just because Asda decides to spot patting its bum.

Winston Churchill used the power of three all the time in his speeches. Even when he didn't that's the way we remember him. Blood, sweat and tears was actually 'blood, toil, tears and sweat'.

The earliest example I can think of is Julius Ceasar's 'Veni. Vidi. Vici.' (I came. I saw. I conquered.) After all, he could just as easily have said 'I came. I conquered'.  Just 'I conquered' would have conveyed the meaning, especially to the poor sods he'd just slaughtered.

And he was a man who understood the importance of branding.

New Year Greetings

Happy new year!

As another April 6th flies past more people are slowly waking up to the fact that Gordon Brown pulled a fast one on small companies in last month's budget. Big business gets a 2p cut in corporation tax. Small business gets a 3p rise in corporation tax. How's that meant to work?

I've been wondering why so many people missed it. David Cameron has been taunting Tony Blair about 'not seeming to realise that there were two types of corporation tax'. I get the distinct impression that he didn't realise either until one of his less well-off lackeys pointed it out some time in the week between the Budget and the next PMQs.

I'll admit it's a bit of a pain updating all our training materials following each Budget, but one of the pleasurable side effects for a news junkie like me is comparing the coverage in all the papers the day after.

Almost all talked about the 'abolition' of the starting rate of income tax - a phrase that the Treasury uses. Now in my version of English abolishing a tax is a thing to be celebrated. But in Treasury-speak abolishing the starting rate actually means turning it into the standard rate. This means doubling it - from 10% to 20%.

None of the broadsheets pointed this out in ways that you or I would understand. Which was the only paper to nail it? Step forward the Sun. And to prove it here's the clever - and remarkably simple - graphic they used.

In the Beginning

Coming soon...musings on running a small business, the media and why trainers use so much Blutack.