In a week when just about everything that could go wrong DID go wrong, Nicola's taking her place on a rota of driving and cooking duties for a dear friend's husband, but a chance conversation with someone who asked some great questions, helped her think differently about how to handle a tricky project and her stress levels have dropped dramatically as a consequence. Who can you have a conversation with that might help you think differently about something you are worrying about?

Clicks And Leads is a "tongue in cheek" digital marketing Vzine by entrepreneur, author, podcaster, speaker, Nicola Cairncross.

On the blog

What Is Social Media Marketing

Why Use Social Media Marketing

Which Social Media Platform Is Best

What Kind Of Social Media Marketing Format Works Best

How To Create A Social Media Marketing Plan

When You Shouldn’t Do Your Own Social Media Marketing

How To Tell If Your Social Media Marketing Is Working

Own It! 211 | Successful Pro Blogging

Vzine 075 | Social Media Marketing Uncovered

Prefer to read?

Well welcome to this week's Vzine, it's Nicola here and I'm back in Greece, as you know, and it's been absolutely appalling weather, you'll be glad to hear. It's been thunderstorms, it's been hail, and lots of snow on the mountains. I'm pretty toasty warm because that, that stove over there works a treat.

This week, it's all been about neighbourliness. One of my very good friends just a few doors up has been taken ill unexpectedly and her husband has been having to go to Kalamata, which is a 45 minute to an hour drive each way, and he's obviously worried sick about her.

And so all the neighbours in Stoupa have been taking it in turns to take him in and it was my turn today. We've also been dropping food round for him as well, and people have been inviting him to dinner because he's not known for his cooking skills.

But she's on the mend, we think, I saw her today briefly, and she seemed much brighter, although the weird food they give you in ICU in Greek hospitals is really strange, it's like a sort of rice gruel. I wouldn't want that at all, no matter how ill I was. So, get well soon Stella, I know you don't watch this, but get well soon anyway.

I've learned some stuff this week, so I'm going to tell you all about that in the next bit.

This week on the Own It podcast

We were talking a lot about when you should hire a coach or a mentor and what you should look for in that coach or mentor. And I've had a fantastic experience this week of actually just talking to someone who is a very experienced business person, I might add, and they asked me one question which shifted my whole thinking about everything.

And the reasons really, you need a coach and a mentor, I just made some notes here, is that you don't know what you don't know and you don't know lots of things.

You know, you don't know the pitfalls, you don't know the things that can go wrong, you don't know the ways to save time and money, there's a lot that you don't know, but your mentor or coach will know.

The great questions thing is really important. A coach will know, a good coach, a trained coach will know the kind of questions to ask you to get you thinking differently. That's exactly what happened to me this week, and I want to tell you about that in a minute.

And there are other ways to do things. There are ways that work better, there are ways that you might not have thought of, there are ways that other people would do it differently to you. And that's really valuable to be able to knock those kind of ideas around with someone who is very experienced, ideally in the thing that you want to achieve.

So this happened to me this week. My sister Sarah is moving on to pastures new and I'm recruiting for a new VA. And I was getting quite stressed about it, because Sarah's, while she's making all the training videos and tick lists and things for the new person,

In this weeks series of daily videos, Nicola covers the answers to some of the biggest questions she gets asked about social media marketing for business. From why you should be thinking about social media marketing in the first place, through to how to tell if your social media marketing is working.

Clicks And Leads is a "tongue in cheek" digital marketing Vzine by entrepreneur, author, podcaster, speaker, Nicola Cairncross.

Mentioned In The Vzine

Stoupa

Own It! The Podcast

NicolaCairncross.com/blog

On the blog

Core Needs

When Email Dies

Different Buckets

Core Values

Go To Give

Your Emergency Fund

Kolbe A Index

Own It! 210 | Replacing Your Trusted VA

Own It! 209 | 2019: Planning for a New Year

Vzine 84 | Living With Uncertainty

Vzine 83 | Self Awareness

Prefer to read?

Hi, Nicola here and I just wanted to show you that I was back in Stoupa and what the beach looks like with no sunbeds at all. It's all very strangely empty. But it's lovely and sunny, it's the middle of January and I've just spent the whole last hour or so sitting outside in the sunshine, which is why I'm probably looking a bit pink.

But anyway I wanted to welcome you back and let's get on with the show, shall we.

The first question that I see a lot is what is social media marketing?

It's a way of getting closer to your customers. It's a way of building a relationship with your customers or your potential future customers indeed. It's a way of people getting to know, like and trust you, over your competition. And it's a way of attracting people to you that like your style. It's a way of sharing information about your business that makes your business more relatable, less business-like, more personable.

In conclusion, social media marketing is a lot of different things, but essentially it's a way of creating a relationship with your potential future customers. It's a way of maintaining your relationship with your existing customers and it's a way of hopefully attracting back your previous customers.

Why use social media marketing at all?

The Millennial generation are growing up without having any interest in using email whatsoever. So you've got to find a way to get in front of that huge potential market, before they get to the age where they're the main buyers. And that's only a few years away.

If they don't use email, and they don't respond to advertising and they don't look at magazines, and if they get all their news from YouTube and Facebook, you've got to find a way of getting your business in front of them in a natural, non-pushy way.

So as you can see, it's really crucial that you learn how to use social media marketing, so that when your potential future market reaches the age when they become the biggest buying group, your business isn't invisible to them. And there are lots of easy, inexpensive, fun ways of doing that. You've just got to get your head around it.

People ask me, which social media platform should I use?

It all depends on which social media platform you use yourself. It depends on which social media platform your potential future customers will use. And it depends which one lends itself better to the kind of social media marketing you're going to be doing.

You've got to keep flexible and you've got to keep trying the new platforms as they come out. Some will resonate with your more than others. I concentrated much more on Facebook and on YouTube, never been really into Pinterest, so I think you've got to actually be using some of these platforms yourself as a human being, but don't discount a social media platform just because you don't like using it, if you hear about other people using it.

You don't want to be left behind, do you.

What format should you use?

Should you be using pictures, should you be using long form written format, should you be using video? The whole world seems to be going video crazy right now.

Having been watching the comments in a big marketer's Facebook Lives, I'm struck by how people are always seeking certainty before taking action. Will it work for me / my business, will it work in my niche, will it work in my country?

The limiting / negative beliefs and sweeping generalisations were coming thick and fast. This is in direct contrast to how I work, where I'll take an idea and get the "minimal viable version" up and running and just test, test, test!

I'm actually testing using Facebook Live to record the middle part of my vzine each week now, so that I can test Social Media Examiner's assertions that Facebook Lives are a waste of time after the event, while Frank Kern says the exact opposite.

Clicks And Leads is a "tongue in cheek" digital marketing Vzine by entrepreneur, author, podcaster, speaker, Nicola Cairncross.

Mentioned In The Vzine

Lumen5

Open Broadcaster Software

Writing Club World

Own It! The Podcast

NicolaCairncross.com/blog

On the blog

Split Testing Prices

How Is 2019 Looking?

A Video A Day (Results)

Growing Your Nest Egg

Self Awareness

Cleaning Up Linked In

Financial Peace Of Mind

Own It! 209 | 2019: Planning for a New Year

Own It! 208 | Thoughts On Friendship

Vzine 83 | Self Awareness

Vzine 82 | New Year's Resolutions. Too Little Too Late?

Prefer to read?

Hello, and welcome to the Vzine this week. I'm going live on Facebook. I'm taking a leaf out of Frank Kern's book, and I'm going live. In the middle section of the Vzine this week is me going live, talking about entrepreneurial uncertainty because so many people seem to be seeking entrepreneurial certainty and there just isn't any such thing.

So I cover the main points about what I see people needing and how to deal with entrepreneurial uncertainty and I hope you enjoy it.

I'm still in Shoreham, I'm staying with the kids an extra couple of weeks, just because I can, and I'm heading back on Friday to Stoupa in The Mani.

I give you a tip in the middle section this week about someone who is a natural-born marketer. And if you're interested in Greece, then you can follow her and she goes live on a regular basis and shows you the most beautiful parts of where we live.

 

Let's get on with the show, shall we?

The whole topic of today's conversation, for the first five minutes anyway, is, living with uncertainty as an entrepreneur. Because I was just watching one of Frank Kern's live videos and he's been doing a lot recently and I was reading the comments, and one of the things I was noticing was people were seeking assurance.

They were seeking assurance that things would work for them, that things would work in their market niche, that things would work in their geolocation, and they just really wanted to know that things would work.

So they were looking for assurances that it would work in the real estate market, they were looking for assurances that social media marketing would work in the car sales market, and they were looking for assurances that it would work in the bug catching arena.

I know Hal the Bug Catcher, from down there in Florida, and he has done great with video marketing. I don't believe there's a business that could not do well with video marketing and social media marketing.

There was one guy on Frank's timeline that was asking about a banqueting hall. He'd got the job of trying to market a banqueting hall. Well, I'd be going live from every single event that that banqueting hall is hosting. I'd be going down there as a marketing person, I'd be making sure I was taking fabulous video live from the events. Or I'd be getting fabulous photos of the events and I would be turning those photos into a video using a tool like Lumen5 for example, and then I would be putting some fabulous music on top of that, and then I'd be rolling that out on my Facebook page.

I think there is ways now using, what is it, OPS? Open Broad-- OBS,

New Year is a good time to make new beginnings and my daughter Phoebe has decided to look for a job at a digital marketing company or other business media company. I've been running her through a few tests, all designed to enhance her self awareness. I have a good idea of her personality but there might still be some surprises. It's important to know who you are, so that you don't go applying for jobs that you would be ill-suited for or worse, that you would hate!

Clicks And Leads is a "tongue in cheek" digital marketing Vzine by entrepreneur, author, podcaster, speaker, Nicola Cairncross.

Mentioned In The Vzine

Wealth Dynamics Test by Roger Hamilton

JudithMorgan.com

NicolaCairncross.com/blog

On the blog

The Voice Of Your Business

Extraordinary Money Conversations

Minimum Or Maximum Marketing

Marketing To Millennials

Money Baby Steps

Money Boundaries

Is Your Business Invisible?

Own It! 208 | Thoughts On Friendship

Vzine 82 | New Year's Resolutions. Too Little Too Late?

Vzine 81 | 5 Little Questions

Prefer to read?

Hello and welcome to the this week's Vzine and this week I'm going to be giving you some tips to make new beginnings easier.

I'm in Shoreham, the weather's terrible but it's worse in Greece. It's been snowing in Greece for the first time in 15 years apparently! So, I'm not looking forward to going back but I did decide to stay a little bit longer in Shoreham to be with Phoebe and Nelson and miss the snow.

Anyway, enough waffling about the weather.

Let's crack on with the show

So, I said I'd share the self awareness tools that I'm sharing with my daughter Phoebe, who's on a job quest at the moment.

The first one, is, I got her to do the Wealth Dynamics Test. This was invented by Roger Hamilton and I think it's a mixture of lots of different things but it does seem to be remarkably powerful at showing people what their fastest route to the money is, or what their fastest route to success is.

It uncovers your personality aspects that just come completely naturally to you, and suggests the kind of jobs that would suit you, as well as holding up examples of the kind of people who are in your Wealth Dynamics profile.

I came out really strongly as a Creator Star personality type. Which means that, although I may be introvert, I'm very creative and I don't mind being on camera, or being onstage, but I'm not massively keen on big gatherings, or, if I do go to them, I enjoy them at the time, and then I need lots of time to get over them afterwards.

If you know these things about yourself, you can work out the best way to be as successful as you can be, without draining yourself. For example, I need a couple of days after any speaking gig, to let the adrenalin wear off again. And now I know that, I don't try and put any important work things in straight after a speaking engagement.

If you want to do your Wealth Dynamics Test, the easiest way is either to Google it, but you could be hunting around a bit, or go to my friend, JudithMorgan.com and scroll down the sidebar of her website until you see the Wealth Dynamics logo. That's the best way to find it quickly. I highly recommend them.

So, mainly last week, on the blog and the podcast, I was talking about money. It's a great time of year, the New Year, to be thinking about your money, because a lot of times people think about what they want to achieve during the next year.

But the other thing you can do, is make a budget for the next year. Because the one way to become financially successful is to make a big gap between what you spend and what you earn.

It is what you do with the difference that counts.

Starting to save it. Accumulate an emergency fund, and then when the emergency fund has got to a figure you're comfortable with, start siphoning that money off into a pot for investments.

What do you invest in? You invest in things that will make you money. So,

Nicola Cairncross is launching a brand new business AND trying three new things in this issue of the Vzine, while talking about the whole concept of New Year's resolutions. Should you make them, is it already too late by 2nd of January and what's the one thing you must NEVER do?

Clicks And Leads is a "tongue in cheek" digital marketing Vzine by entrepreneur, author, podcaster, speaker, Nicola Cairncross.

Mentioned In The Vzine

Ring light

Facebook Live

BeLive.tv

Nicola's Facebook Page

WritingClubWorld.com

On the blog

Looking Backwards, Looking Forwards

What Worked?

What Didn't Work?

What Did You Learn?

What Will You Do Differently?

What Do You Really, Really Want?

That, Or Something Better!

Own It! 208 | Thoughts On Friendship

Vzine 81 | 5 Little Questions

Vzine 80 | Zapping Tolerations (Revisited)

Prefer to read?

Welcome to this weeks Vzine, in today's show I'm going to be trying something completely different, in fact I'm trying two things that are completely different.

One is using Phoebe's ring light which I've just realised is not centred but it seems to be giving off a good enough light to be working with. I'm trying to decide whether I should buy one for myself basically because it does get a bit murky at home in Greece.

And the other thing I'm doing differently this week, is the middle section is comprised of a Facebook Live because I'm testing some theories.

Frank Kern says that if you go live every day, you get more and more engagement each day and you get more views after you stop, after, you know, you close off the Live.

Social Media Examiner say they don't seem to get any views after they close off their Lives. They get great engagement and great view counts while they're Live on Facebook but then it doesn't seem to continue.

Now both of them then upload to YouTube, which I obviously do anyway, and so you know, you can leave residual stuff. The only problem with the Facebook Live which you'll see, is I'm recording this with my nice little camera which gives a fantastic good recording quality, the sound's good too, and if you've got a good light then you're laughing.

But the Facebook Live is not such great quality, even though I'm using the ring light, because it's filming on my laptop and I couldn't work out how to force it to use the camera instead of the laptop, so you'll see that the image quality isn't so good. What I intend to do, is carry on using the camera for the Vzine and just go Live with Facebook every day.

I'm also using a new bit of software called BeLive.TV which I found really easy to use, after I forced it to connect to Facebook the first time. It took a bit of a while to work out how to do that. But I suspect it was user error.

We'll see how we go with the Facebook Live middle section. Do come and join me over on my page - Facebook.com/NicolaCairncrossUK - if you want to come and see any of the live videos over there.

Let's crack on with the show...

Hey, okay, so here we are live and it's the first time I've used this bit of kit so be patient with me. I'm going to be talking about New Year's Eve, New Year's resolutions and all that good stuff.

Did you make any New Year's resolutions? Did you resolve to change your life? Is it already too late? Have you already missed the boat or feel like there is no point in doing it now? Or perhaps you decided you were going to do something on the 1st of January and you haven't done it.

There are a number of people I know who said about a week and a half ago that they would start on the 1st of January and I thought, why don't you just start now?

You know, if you're that keen to do something, why wait until a certain date?

I know psychologically it feels tidier but also I feel that it's showing that you have a lack of commitment and that you don't really believe that you're going to do it yourself.

So what I want to do is talk to you about some of the thing...

Every year I get my journal out and ask myself "5 Little Questions" and I write and write until I cannot write any more. In this week's vzine, I share those questions as well as some of my answers and I hope you'll play along too! The main thing to remember is to celebrate the good bits and avoid beating yourself up about ANY OF IT! You did your best and if you didn't, there's a good reason for that, I'm sure. Forward troops, forward into a better 2019!

Clicks And Leads is a "tongue in cheek" digital marketing Vzine by entrepreneur, author, podcaster, speaker, Nicola Cairncross.

On the blog

Zapping Tolerations (Revisited)

Kill Your Website?

Overcoming Obstacles

Is This The Next Big Thing?

Time Management

Stop Whining

The Need For Speed

Cheap Overseas VAs

Own It! 208 | Thoughts On Friendship

Own It! 207 | Buying A Business No Money Down

Vzine 80 | Zapping Tolerations (Revisited)

Vzine 79 | All Change Again!

Prefer to read?

Hi, it's Nicola here and welcome back to the Vzine. It's a big week this week. I'm going to travel back to England. And I'm going to see Phoebe and Nelson and stay with them for two and a half weeks pretty much.

And that all kicks off with a very early start on Wednesday morning. 4:30 in the morning I'm being picked up. That is grim. There's got to a better way. I don't know what it is. I've talked about it in my newsletter this week.

So in the meantime, in the absence of a better practical solution to doing at least one early morning, horrible early morning start either going there or coming back in the winter. It's fine in the summer, because EasyJet run a lot more flights to our local airport. But in the winter, it's Athens, and that's three and a half hours away, if not slightly more.

So in the absence of a better practical solution, I'm going to change the way I think about it.

It's going to be great getting up at 4:30 in the morning! I'll have all that time on the coach to read and chat to my friend who I'm travelling with. And I'm going to really enjoy getting such an early start, because it means I get to England a lot earlier. And I'll have all of the rest of the afternoon and evening with Phoebe and Nelson. I'm really looking forward to it.

How's that for a reframe?

Today I want to talk to you about five little questions I ask myself at the end of each year.

And I'd like to share with you. So the first of the questions;

What worked in 2018?

Well what worked for me was continuing to press on with my membership site Clicks & Leads Academy. It had quite a good take-up last year, and this year has been even better by, well, astonishing amounts, extra actually.

And the main thing that really made the difference in what worked there was taking a bit of advice from my mentor. He said, "Try an annual membership."

Now I could not believe that anyone would be willing to sign up for a whole year. I was offering monthly memberships. I tried it though, there's nothing to lose. 80% of people over the last year have signed up for an annual membership.

Not only has it been wildly successful in that respect, but it's also been fantastic for attracting really great clients. The kind of clients who know they want to work on their business for the next year and who are committed to that and who know a bargain when they see one.

So to save 30%, if you decide that you're going to work with someone for a year, is a fantastic deal. And the other thing that's worked has kept me keep nudging the membership level up. I started at $49 a month, and I'm now at £147 a month. So again, you never know what price the market will bear.

What else worked this year?

Hmm, getting into a regular cycle of producing content and getting a process going. So basically, I just do the bits I'm good at, the bits only I can do, like talking to camera, because nobody else can do that for me, and then getting processes in place to make sure the content is t...

Tolerations are insidious things that subliminally annoy you and sap your energy so it's really important to zap them. While making a list of the things (big and small) you are tolerating may seem a bit negative, some magic gets to work when you do...

Clicks And Leads is a "tongue in cheek" digital marketing Vzine by entrepreneur, author, podcaster, speaker, Nicola Cairncross.

Mentioned in the Vzine

Kardamyli, Greece

On the blog

Ideal Clients

DIY, DWY or DFY?

List Segmentation

Are You Getting Paid?

Entrepreneurial Loneliness

Mental Models

Automatic Customers

Six Figure Mentors Review

Own It! 207 | Buying A Business No Money Down

Own It! 206 | Rhys Morgan: Podcasting From Scratch

Vzine 79 - All Change Again!

Prefer to read?

Welcome everyone, it's Nicola here. And it's the Clicks and Leads Vzine and today I'm basking in the glow not only of some glorious sunshine, although I woke up this morning to pouring rain.

It's one or the other here. It's nothing in between. None of that drizzle business. It's either pouring biblically or it's sunny. And yeah, it's absolutely amazing so I'm going out later on, which will be nice because I'll be able to sit in the sunshine.

And the other thing that I'm basking in the glow of, is the deflected glow of a job well done.

You know how around the house you get those niggly little jobs and, you know, I had some lights out in the kitchen and there was a light out over on those spotlights over here. And I just tried everything.

I tried borrowing a step ladder. I tried getting my sister to stand on a chair. I tried getting my sister to stand on the work-top but neither of us could reach them and we couldn't work out how to get the lights out so we could go and buy some more.

Finally, my landlord responded to my appeals and he came down with a very big step ladder and he kindly took all the bulbs out that were blown. I bought some more and he came back and put them all in again for me. So I'm feeling, you know, I'm feeling the joy of a toleration busted and it's an even more joyous thing when it's busted by someone else.

So let's get on with the show, shall we?

So I mentioned toleration busting in the intro and it's a very well known coaching tool that you sit down and you write down all the things you're tolerating. And the premise is that every toleration is a bit of an energy suck for you.

So every time you look at that thing, like every time I turned my lights on and thought, "Oh, it's a bit dim in the kitchen", it was sucking a little bit of my energy out of me. And if you look around your house, there's all these things that you're putting up with and the point is that successful, wealthy people wouldn't put up with things, they would point at something and they would go,"Fix that" or "Get that done" or "Can we get that done?", and it would be fixed and they wouldn't have to look at it anymore. So it wouldn't be sucking their energy.

So it's always a good idea to have a little list of things that you're tolerating and what magically happens, it happens every time I do this, every time I make a list of things I'm tolerating, someone comes along and fixes one or two of them for me. Or they just mention something that would fix the toleration or they say that they've seen something on eBay or in a local shop for example.

Another thing I'm tolerating is my wood burning stove. It needs some caulking around the side of the inside bit that fits you where you shut the door. And I've had a guy around who put some caulking on and it promptly fell off again, and I've heard that you had to go to Kalamata to get caulking.

But since then, I've just been occasionally aware that I need to find somewhere to buy caulking and a friend just popped up the other day and said you could get it in Kardamyli Arkwright's. So I'm going to drive over there and take a bit of the existing caulking and hopefully I'll be able to buy some more...

On a week where there are three big changes happening, I'm wondering how well we cope with change even though really, there is nothing but change in business and in marketing particularly.

Clicks And Leads is a "tongue in cheek" digital marketing Vzine by entrepreneur, author, podcaster, speaker, Nicola Cairncross.

Mentioned in the Vzine

Social Media Examiner

Clicks And Leads Academy Weekly Call

LinkedIn

On the blog

Hotel Marketing Tip #1

Hotel Marketing Tip #2

Hotel Marketing Tip #3

Your 5 Most Important Numbers

How Do You Become More Accountable

A Quick Instagram Tip

Find Your Hungry Crowd

Comparisonitis - Don't Fall For It!

Own It! 206 | Rhys Morgan: Podcasting From Scratch

Own It! 205 | Does Your Schedule Reflect Your Values?

Vzine 78 - What's Your Alternative?

Prefer to read?

Welcome back, it's Nicola here with the weekly Vzine, and it's a bit of a funny time of the evening, light-wise this evening, so my camera keeps making alarming, flashing signals at me but hopefully you can see me well enough. It's pretty well-lit in here.

I wanted to talk to you this week about change, and that's what I'm going to be covering in the middle section. It's got quite, quite cool here in Greece, and I understand it's even colder in the UK where I'm coming back to in a couple of weeks.

But here we are still able, in the sunshine, in the daytime, to sit out in a T-shirt and, indeed, if you go out in a jumper, you really seriously suffer. So everyone has to wear layers out here at the moment because you never know what's going to happen.

And the fire's going behind me. That's the wood-burning stove, so I've been out hauling wood today. Basically, they deliver it in a big pile and they dump it in your driveway and then you have to move it to where you want. But it's good aerobic exercise, so I've obviously got my gardening gloves as well because you never know what critters might be living in the bits of wood.

So, yeah, it's quite a nice ritual at this time of the evening to get the fire going. I really enjoy that, and I think if ever I came back to the UK, I would definitely get a wood-burning stove or something similar because they're really efficient and they're really cosy.

Let's stop me wittering on about the weather and crack on with the show, shall we?

Today I want to talk to you about change

It's a topic that's come up a lot over the last couple of days because I have been talking to my son, Nelson and daughter, Phoebe, and they are moving out of their dad's flat, which is a big change.

They've managed to find something together, which I'm really pleased about and they're going to be doing that either between Christmas New Year, or just after the holiday period, finishes. Not before the 5th of January, I hope, because that's where I'm going to be until then, so it'd be great to spend as much time as possible with them.

And, yeah, the other reason we've been talking about change actually made me feel a bit weepy, to be honest, because it's a big deal. They're growing up, and that means although they'll always be my babies, they're going to be a bit more independent babies now.

And the other reason I want to talk about change was because I've been watching the Social Media Examiner series where they're talking about what is going on with Facebook Video because they're finding that their videos are doing much, much better on YouTube where people are watching them through to 60, 70 percent and not as many people watching them, but watching them for longer.

Whereas on Facebook, Facebook are reporting lots of people are watching, but when you actually look at the percentage of people who drop off, it's mostly people drop off after the first sort of 30 seconds or so, so that isn't good, is it?

So what to do about Facebook marketing?

What to do about video marketing? Whether you need to change your strategy depending on whether you've been...

On my live Clicks & Leads Academy calls I allow my clients a couple of minutes to have a quick moan. And when my best friend Kim and I meet up, we allow ourselves 15 minutes. But then we ask ourselves a very important couple of questions that help us turn things around. Because nobody likes someone who continually moans but doesn't take action. I also reveal a handy tool for finding out what you DO want, if you are not sure.

Clicks And Leads is a "tongue in cheek" digital marketing Vzine by entrepreneur, author, podcaster, speaker, Nicola Cairncross.

Mentioned in the Vzine

Clicks And Leads Academy

Write Club

On the blog

Vzine 77 - Fairytales In Business

Start A Business Podcast

Your Marketing Budget

Thoughts Become Things

Your Offer That Converts

Profit From Your Passion

How To Become More Creative

Own It! 205 | Does Your Schedule Reflect Your Values?

Own It! 204 | The Internet And Social Media – A Force For Good Or Evil?

Prefer to read?

Welcome back. Nicola here, and I just wanted to update you on the one-minute video campaign which I'm doing. It's having a rather startling effect on the numbers that count.

It's basically increased the views on my LinkedIn profile by 210%, and it's increased the views on my Twitter profile by over 100%, which is quite astonishing really. So I will be continuing with this, and if you're getting any value from the one-minute videos, do let me know underneath wherever you're seeing them. Whether that's on the Facebook page, the blog, the YouTube channel, Twitter, or LinkedIn, I'd love to hear from you.

I unfortunately can't update you on what impact it's having on views on my sales pages, which is the real goal, of course, because all the power's just gone off in Greece, so I'm absolutely internet-less. Luckily my camera works without power, for a little while, anyway. So I'll try to get this content recorded for you while the power is off, and then I'm off to Write Club later, so that'll be fun with no power. We'll see what happens there.

In the Clicks & Leads Academy, we have weekly live calls, where people can just pitch up, basically, and either ask me questions or just get a load of stuff off their chest, which is often what it turns into. Because they've got nobody else to talk to about their negativity, their fears, their doubts, to ask what to do next when you're feeling stuck.

But what I don't do is let people wallow.

I'm starting to ask people "What's your alternative?", because once you've had a little rant, or a little complain about something, then you've just got to think to yourself, what is your alternative, what's your choice, what are your choices here? Because nobody is going to listen to somebody who complains for very long.

I give my clients about, oh, three or four minutes for a good ol' complain, and my best friend Kim and I have always had a policy that we get 15 minutes each to have a good old moan before we start talking about "Well, what's your alternative, what's your choice?"

And so the other thing people are very keen on telling me is what they don't want.

I had a client once who was a bank manager, and he knew he wasn't going to be a bank manager for much longer because the banks were getting rid of the older managers, so he knew he needed to find something else, and he didn't really know what he wanted to do.

He knew what he could do, but he didn't really want to do any of those things, so we kept looking at what are his choices, what're his alternatives, and we also turned around what he didn't want into positives. Okay?

So, if you don't want something that means you're going to work evenings and weekends, where does that leave you? What choices do you have where you don't want evenings and weekends?

Eventually, he found his perfect business and funnily enough, it was right underneath where the bank was. It was a very thriving little cafe that was up for sale and the good news...

Just off to Write Club and we recorded our "Fairytales" episode for WriteClubThePodcast.com. This is appropriate because following on from last week's Vzine 076, I've been thinking about where this feeling of "someone's coming to save me" comes from. Also manifesting it in business as some external event or new shiny object that is going to be the "one big thing" that makes all the difference...

Clicks And Leads is a "tongue in cheek" digital marketing Vzine by entrepreneur, author, podcaster, speaker, Nicola Cairncross.

Mentioned in the Vzine

Clicks And Leads Academy

Write Club

On the blog

Nothing's Happening, What To Do?

Think You Need A Business Partner?

You Really Need To Be Everywhere Online

Be Bigger Than The Space You Fill In The Universe

Voice Search Is Coming! Would Your Business Be Found?

Nobody Cares About Your Money (Like You Do)

No Resources? Be Resourceful!

The One Thing That WILL Hold You Back

Own It! 204 | The Internet And Social Media – A Force For Good Or Evil?

Own It! 203 | Secure Financial Futures for the Self Employed

Prefer to read?

Hi, it's Nicola and I'm back for episode 77 of the Vzine. I'd better not put numbers in in case I get it wrong, because I'm bound to.

Yeah, it's been a great week out here. It's been thunderstorms and lightning, which means that the power goes off on a regular basis, and the internet goes off on a regular basis. I've bought myself a Calor gas stove, a little tiny one, so I can make a cup of tea when that happens, because there's nothing worse than not being able to have a hot drink.

I've been out and about this week. I've been to writing club. I've been to reading club. I've been out for dinner, Dave's Dining Club. The ex-pats certainly know how to get a bit of action going on once the summer wears off. And I'm just off to Write Club where we're going to plan for a few episodes of WriteClubThePodcast.com over Christmas. So if you're a writer, or if you're a reader, do come along and check out that.

This week, I would like to talk to you about how fairytales affect us

How the stories we're told growing up, affect how we behave as adults. And the reason this was brought to my attention was because we were talking about fairytales in our Write Club podcast, and how they grew up from the folk tales, which means that they weren't invented by any government to indoctrinate us. They were invented by women telling stories around the bedside or the campfire. And I think it just grew up to reflect how life was like in the olden days.

But when I think about the kind of fairytales I read when I was a child, before I went on to science fiction and fantasy, which is a grown-up version of fairytales, I think about how I had this subliminal thought that someone was going to come and rescue me at some point.

And I remember when that realisation came to me that that was completely false, that nobody actually was coming to rescue me at all, not even my parents, was about when I was about 37 or 38, which is really late in life, isn't it? It really is.

It came to me when I was married and I had children. And, somehow, I had this subliminal thought that at every stage in life, I would get more grown-up or that someone would come and rescue me and everything would suddenly be made alright.

I remember how I felt when I realised that nobody was coming to save me. There was no prince in shining armour on a mounted steed with a sword.

I'd had this feeling for so long that I'd be saved at some point, and I don't know where it came from. The only place I can think it came from was from fairytales, and, perhaps, that was my moment of growing up when I had my kids and I realised if it's to be, it's up to me, and nobody is coming, not even my parents.

I think people who've got really good parents must have this problem because they must always have their parents to fall back on.