Posts tagged workshops

Inspiration and entrepreneurs

Nick Williams - Inspired Entrepreneur Event - Passion into ProfitsI’m always going on about the necessity of getting out frequently when you work from home and I’m really looking forward to Sunday, when I’ll be attending an Inspired Entrepreneur event in London with Nick Williams and Judy Piatkus.

Nick’s expertise is in helping people to overcome the conditioning many of us have received that work is something you have to do to pay the bills and fund the things you like doing in your time off. He helps people to identify their unique combination of skills and talents and find ways of earning money while using these and enjoying themselves. I have known Nick for 10 years, since I sold my cleaning business, and over the last couple of years he has helped me enormously in shaping the vague ideas I had about building a business related to home working.

I find I benefit from his events in several ways – because the quality of the information is topnotch, coming as it does from Nick’s own experience, because there are always interesting and supportive people there, and just because it’s so refreshing to get out of my normal environment and spend a day in the big city!

This time Nick is talking about making the often scary move from employee to Inspired Entrepreneur and in the ticket price you also get a workbook and 12 interviews on CD – and do you know, one of them is of me! Oops, just noticed there are only two places left, so if it sounds interesting, you’d better book quickly!

In the afternoon Judy Piatkus (who founded Piatkus Books from her back bedroom) will reveal the six biggest trends of the next two years, and how you and your business can take advantage of them. I am fascinated by trends and have been on the alert for them since years ago I read a book called The Popcorn Report, which predicted many trends that have since become commonplace – for example, the rise of ‘foodaceuticals’, where food such as butter spread contains ingredients with health benefits, the growing popularity of foreign foods, and the retreat to the home as a refuge from the scary things happening in the world. I can’t wait to hear Judy’s’ take on what’s happening now.

‘What do you do?’

Just lately a few people have asked me ‘What do you actually do?’ or ‘How do you make a living?’ and those are very fair questions, as at the moment there is nothing on the website that gives any indication!

The answer is that I have been working first on the content of the site, on linking to other sites that are good resources for home workers and on building up traffic. I’m now at the point where I’m almost ready to offer products and services, while still regularly adding new pages of information.

One thing I have been working on is provisionally titled the Work from Home Audit, and is a 30 or 60 minute phone or Skype conversation to assess how happy you are with what you’re currently achieving in your home working role, and to discuss ways of improving things. The people who have been helping me trial this have been delighted with the results and moved their businesses on noticeably.

I also give talks and workshops about home working to groups and at events, and again I’m preparing information about this. At the moment, apart from the occasional help of the patient and long-suffering A, it’s just me producing all this stuff so progress is always slower than I’d like, bearing in mind I have very little patience and would ideally like to bring every idea into being as soon as I think of it!

Working from home workshops

In the end I postponed the workshop I was planning to run in Frome last Saturday, but I learnt a lot from the process of organising it. Rather than booking a room and advertising to the general public in the hope of filling places, I am now making a list of people who are interested and once I have plenty, I will work out a date that suits the majority and hold the workshop. That way everyone will know me, or at least know of me, some will know each other, and I think it will be a really friendly and productive day, a chance to share experiences of working from home and recharge our batteries. I’m sure there will also be some opportunities for people to help each other out after the event and maybe even to get some work.

If you are interested, have a look at Work from Home Events where there is a description of the workshop, and then contact me so I can add you to the list. And please pass the information on to any home workers you know who would be interested. Thanks!