Small Business & The Twitter Phenomenon

Twitter, it’s what’s hot on the lips of the media at the moment. If you haven’t yet heard about it I encourage you to check it out at twitter.com.

Twitter is a micro-blogging tool that allows you stay connected to people (think customers, vendors, potential target markets, colleagues, etc.) in real-time. You may be familiar with status updates like those on the social networking site Facebook. Twitter is a tool that allows you to give such updates to a community of users. Twitter becomes more valuable as you get more relevant followers to connect, share, and network. Companies like Dell and Starbucks use Twitter to inform customers of special discounts available at stores. OE Design (the web design business that I’m apart of – www.oe-design.com) use it to let people know about updates to our blog.

Read further for more information about the phenomenon of Twitter and the social media wave that’s showcasing itself to the world at the moment. It’s current, it’s relevant and it’s a clever way to network and market your business, and best of all it’s FREE!

As Chief Sales and Marketing for OE Design – The Web Designers (www.oe-design.com) we are constantly looking for ways of keeping relevent and also equipping our clients to use the power of the Internet to do BIG business.

Here is an article we wrote on the OE Design blog that I thought I would also share with you… Enjoy.

When you start to count the hours.. what’s really important?

To that someone:

We overload with commitments
We overload with possessions
We overload with work
We overload with information technology

We forget about family
We forget about friends
We worry about the credit card
We forget about quality time

There is approx. 8760 hours in a year. So far we’ve already used up about 87 hours.

When you think about life in this way.. what’s really important?

Are you a 110%?

The people that I really honour and respect in life are people that work hard, or work with a desire to give 110%. They want to be the very best that they can be.

110%, it comes with choice – Life is full of choices.

My husband Jai was teaching a young boy the other day on the violin. However, he wasn’t playing up to his normal standard.

Jai asked: “Have you practiced this week?”
There was a moments pause and the student answered: “Not really”
Jai replied: “Is that a not really, or a yes?”
The student replied: “No, not much”

Jai went on to say:

Never let a tortoise shell get in the way…

Pound, Pound, Pound, Pound – The heart is beating, the breath is heavy, the pulse is throbbing inside your head. . . It’s called the race of life!

Now for someone who may not know me, I’m a little bit competitive. (Maybe just a little.) My brother Ben, my husband Jai and myself went running yesterday. We had to run about 1KM to the oval where we were heading. Now, for someone who’s (as I said before) just a little bit competitive, it was extremely frustrating and disheartening to see my fellow runners at least 100 metres ahead of me. I’ve never liked the long distance running and as I heaved and puffed and heaved and pushed in the end I ended up saying:

“You go on, I’ll catch up!“

Just get out of bed!

There are moments in one’s life where a warm bed, sheets and doona looks so comforting. It’s not that you’re tired and that you need a few extra forty winks, it’s the thoughts of, “I just don’t want to try anymore” that can overwhelm one’s heart. It’s in these moments when you need to find something that will empower you to just keep trying.

It’s not always about price, it’s about quality.

My first “business coaching session”…

Today I had a client ask my advice about a local printer. She wondering who I recommended and this was my answer:

Approach 3 separate companies and ask each of them for a quote. Ask them all the same questions and details so that the quote is the same. A great way to determine which company is to see how they present their quote – if it look professional and the price is reasonable to the other 2, choose them.

It’s not always about price, it’s about quality.

Watch me burn!

Never let the bad times get you down. I love this Daily Motivational Memo that my dad, Peter Sinclairwrote:

‘In a world that says, ‘You can’t', shout from the rooftops, ‘I can and I will.’
Find your roof and stand firmly upon it. Pitch a tent there and shout with the loudest shout you can muster with those lungs of yours. And when the winds try to blow you off the roof, and the rains endeavour to dampen your spirits, and when the fire brigade come with their ladders to urge you to get down off your roof, you stay put. Don’t be moved. ‘They’, yes that group called ‘they’, said that you’d never do it, never amount to anything and would never set the world on fire. But you just look straight back in their eyes and say, ‘Watch me burn!’

What is passion?

Passion, this is something that I’ve been thinking about lately. What makes me passionate? What makes me have a strong emotion, a rage, a love and a belief? What is something that I know without a doubt in my mind that … “This is what life is all about!”

This is how the dictionary defines “passion”:

1. a strong feeling or emotion

2. heat: the trait of being intensely emotional

3. rage: something that is desired intensely

4. mania: an irrational but irresistible motive for a belief or action

5. love: any object of warm affection or devotion