Little Black Business Books - Getting Your Business Message Across - Marilyn Messik Little Black Business Books

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      Publishing details

      A Brightword book

      www.brightwordpublishing.com

      HARRIMAN HOUSE LTD

      3A Penns Road

      Petersfield

      Hampshire

      GU32 2EW

      GREAT BRITAIN

      Tel: +44 (0)1730 233870

      Fax: +44 (0)1730 233880

      Email: [email protected]

      Website: www.harriman-house.com

      First published in Great Britain in 2011

      Copyright © Harriman House Ltd

      The right of Marilyn Messik to be identified as the author has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.

      ISBN: 978-1-90800-325-6

      British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

      A CIP catalogue record for this book can be obtained from the British Library.

      All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the Publisher. This book may not be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise disposed of by way of trade in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without the prior written consent of the Publisher.

      No responsibility for loss occasioned to any person or corporate body acting or refraining to act as a result of reading material in this book can be accepted by the Publisher, by the Author, or by the employer of the Author.

      About The Author

      A regular contributor to national magazines when her children were small, Marilyn Messik set up a children’s party business in the early ‘80s, opening first one shop and then another. At the end of the ‘80s Marilyn moved into the travel market, focusing on New England in the USA. Her advisory, planning and booking service flourished and she concurrently set up a publishing company to make information more widely available. The U.S. Welcome Selected Hotels & Inns annual publication was a lush, full colour guide to independent hotels, inns and B&Bs which eventually grew to take in accommodation all over America.

      The success of the book led to invitations to speak at industry conferences and Marilyn served a three-year term as a board member of the Professional Association of Innkeepers and was made an honorary member of the New England Innkeepers Association for her work in promoting the area.

      As a niche company, marketing and promotional budgets were tight but strategic alliances with far larger organisations such as North West Airlines, Johansens and the Debenhams Group offered the opportunity to reach optimum numbers of targeted consumers and the Selected Hotels & Inns guide was finally bought out by Thomas Cook Publishing.

      In 2007, Marilyn set up a copywriting consultancy – Create Communication – to work with businesses of all types and sizes, helping them shape their messages to optimum effect. She’s become a serial networker on the business women’s circuit, holds successful communication workshops, and brought out a series of business books for people who don’t believe in miracles!

      Testimonials

       “Marilyn has a knack of transforming any subject into something you anticipate with excitement. At every newsletter and blog of hers I find myself nodding and grinning like the Cheshire Cat. On a personal level Marilyn’s enthusiasm to see my first book succeed has been terrific.”

      Jessica Chivers, The Thinking Woman’s Coach, motherswork.wordpress.com

       “There is ‘always one and it is always Marilyn’ for that I am eternally grateful. I love her humour, tenacity and at all times her fairness. One of the most generous, honest businesswomen I know.”

      Jacqueline Rogers, The Athena Network, www.theathenanetwork.com

       “Fierce, feisty, funny, utterly professional, always consistent – a small but solid tower of strength!”

      Jane Milton, The Food Network, www.thefoodnetwork.co.uk

      Introduction to Little Black Business Books

       Said it before, and here I am saying it again! Yes, wouldn’t it be nice if success in business came with a neatly set out instruction book that laid down a step-by-step route for you to follow the yellow brick road to the pot of business gold? Sorry, just not going to happen!

      The truth is such a thing doesn’t really exist, although like happy ever after endings, the tooth fairy and anti-ageing creams we’d all rather like to believe it did. However, don’t let yourself be put off by that, all I’m doing is letting you know that success is a mixture of hard work, dogged determination, a small slice of luck and faith in yourself. And in case you think I’m heading for the spiritual, that ain’t going to happen either. When spirituality was handed out I was in the toilet. I also missed tall and willowy but we won’t go into that now.

      I simply want to make it clear that nobody can tell you what to do when it comes to business, nor exactly how to do it – although if you’ve read my previous books you’ll know I do have a tendency to try! However that’s just congenital control freakiness and in the long run what counts is having the self-confidence in your own ideas. Once you’ve got that, trust me, you’ll find your own yellow brick road.

      Of course it’s not necessarily always a smooth journey down that road, but in this book we’re going to talk about one of the most vital things you can do when putting your business together and this is – Get Your Business Message Right. Get it right and you’ll go far. Get it wrong and you won’t even make it out of the front door.

      Will the LBBs help you and your business?

      Well, all I can say with complete certainty is that like chicken soup they certainly won’t do you any harm. The fact of the matter is, I can tell you all the sorts of things you need to know, but in the long run it’s how you take that information and make it your own that counts.

      And because this is real life, in the long run there are no guarantees. Sometimes we can be given all the ingredients for a superb cake together with an idiot-proof recipe and some efforts will turn out beautifully whilst others, it has to be said, won’t!

      It also doesn’t hurt for you to bear in mind that as a general rule there is no right or wrong there are only opinions, and whilst the opinions of some business advisors and founts of wisdom will fit in well with yours, others will not. Don’t try to mould yourself to a way of working or approaching an issue that feels wrong. If it feels wrong to you, then it’s probably wrong for you.

      Learn to trust your own instincts and gut feelings. They usually push you in the direction which will work for you and on the occasions that they don’t – well that’s just life isn’t it.

      What you won’t find in LBBs

       A sat nav to Oz because, after more years than I care to remember starting and growing different businesses, the one thing I do know is that there’s no real set protocol; some of the time you just have to shut your eyes, fly by the seat of your pants and hope for the best.

      What you will find

       Structures

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