Mind Your Business

Have you ever had a spare ten minutes between meetings when, rather than getting something done, your brain enters a form of standby mode - not letting you start something new because you have that other meeting coming up? This week Alan and Matt discuss the phenomenon of 'waiting brain' and what you can do to reclaim those lost minutes.

In a world where all the information you could ever need is just a click away, why isn't it the case that all business owners are smashing it? Is it a mindset issue, a time problem or do business owners just not know the right questions to be asking?

It used to be all about work-life balance. Successive lockdowns and continued working at home has put paid to that and now it's all about work-life integration. Flexible working, ditching the 9-5 and integrating your working hours into your day hear and there rather than in a block is now where it's at. This week Alan and Matt talk all about the flexible working revolution and why, if yo...

How many times have you heard the cliche 'work smarter not harder'? What does it mean for you?  This week Matt and Alan dig into what it means to them and how they implement a 'think smart, work hard' mentality in their businesses. If you do it right you could reclaim 10 hours a week - imagine what you could do with that.

This week we discuss an interesting article Matt read on entrepreneur.com which detailed mistakes that early-stage businesses make. Matt and Alan discuss each mistake and decide whether or not it's worthy of a place in the list. 1. Niching 2. Taking Advice 3. Competition 4. Busyness You can read the whole article here: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/359583

How important is belief to being successful in business? This week we talk about how belief in your product or service is key to how you sell it, how belief in yourself allows you to better compare yourself with your competition and how an unshakeable belief in success has a phenomenal impact on business growth.

In this weeks episode, we answer two listener's questions (yay we have listeners!) 1 - how do you deal with being so busy you're overwhelmed? 2 - what do you know now, that you wish you knew when you set up your business? Both questions lead to some really interesting conversations, including how you can turn being 'busy' into being productive and how busyness can actually be a...

On this week's episode, Matt and Alan discuss what business owners need to do to boost their chance of success coming out of lockdown. It centre's on the concept of un-learning what we've always done and re-learning what the new normal is for our business. There's a potential tidal wave of demand about to hit independent businesses, are you ready to surf it or will you be swept...

Setting your price at the correct level is a fundamental building block of any business, but too many business owners struggle with this - particularly around raising prices once they realise they've set them too low. This week Alan and Matt discuss the psychology around pricing, how dangerous it can be if you're too cheap and what you can do to raise your prices (even during a pandemic!...

Whether it's a direct result of lockdown 3.0, or due to a transition from working 'in' their business to working 'on' their business it's entirely normal for business owner's self-motivation levels to drop from time to time. In this week's podcast Matt and Alan discuss the steps anyone can take to re-discover their business mojo and get back to previous leve...

What is it that you do? and why should anyone care? This week Matt and Alan share their views on mission statements and why business owners should revisit theirs as we move out of lockdown.

Cashflow is the number one pain point and cause of anxiety for business owners. The problem is almost always due to too much of your money sitting in your customer's bank accounts rather than yours. This week Matt and Alan discuss 5 simple, practical, tips that you can implement today and that will revolutionise your cashflow.

This week Matt and Alan discuss how business conversations have fundamentally changed over the last 12 months now that Zooms have become an integral way of life. Alan has surprising (at least to Matt!) views on whether meetings are better or worse now they are virtual.

In this week's episode, Alan and Matt talk all things time. Do you know how many weeks the average human lives for?  Do you have a system for managing your time or do you feel buried under conflicting pressures? We spend 30 minutes talking you through practical steps you can take to revolutionise your relationship with time to help you focus and achieve more with the time you have.

What do you see when you look at your direct competition? Could you ever see your self working alongside them? In this episode Alan and Matt discuss the concept of viewing competition as a positive force, completing the customer choice and growing an industry as a whole. They also spend some time discussing co-ompetition - where two competitors work together for the good of the consumer.

Resilience is key for brusiness owners and entrepreneurs in this new world we live in. In this episode Alan and Matt discuss methods we can use to improve our personal resilience.

Given that everyone is using the new lockdown to review and refresh their Social Media strategies, Matt and Alan spend some time going through some top social media tips (based on the top social media tips article on a Google search!).

In this weeks episode Matt and Alan discuss the opposing philosophies of 'Best of Breed' vs 'Integrated Bundles.'  Which method of thinking best suits small business? Can you build a 'unicorn' hybrid of the two? Is this why Salesforce recently paid $27.5b for Slack?

Alan and Matt explain discuss why too many business owners are bogged down trying to find certainty over the future, when it is clarity that they should be searching for.

In episode 1 Matt and Alan talk about getting started, why version one is always better than version none and why 2021 will be the year of the entrepreneur.

Alan and Matt spend half an hour discussing why every business, from accountants to plumbers, are competing with Amazon and what lessons you can learn from that.

Matt and Alan discuss how to avoid writing, director, acting (and watching!) you're very own business horror story