A couple of days ago I got on the phone and did some cold calling for the first time in 10 years (cold calling is ringing up someone out of the phone book that doesn't know you from a bar of soap). The last time I cold called was when I was just starting out as a business coach - and the results back then were nothing to write home about. In fact I think over six months of fairly consistent cold calling I didn't get a single client. Since then I've been in the fortunate position of getting enough business coaching clients through referrals, so it's been a while (which is lucky really, because I if I was relying on my cold calling skills I think I'd be on the street by now).

You are probably thinking "what on earth prompted you do that again?"

We ran The Money Workshop on the weekend. We ask for feedback at the end of the workshop, including what we can improve. We had a few comments like "nothing comes to mind. that's a first!" and simply "all good," as well as "open window was too cold" and "bring an espresso machine." I think if we've got it to the level where the only complaint someone can come up with is that we only have filter coffee and not an espresso machine, we must be doing a few things right!

I was at a workshop last weekend - Passion, Power and Purpose. It was a three day bootcamp that Trish had won a ticket to, and kindly offered it to me.
 
It was run by an organisation called Beyond Success. The workshop had a ticket price of about $3k, although most of the 80 people in the room had paid $25k for a one year program.
 
I was fairly disappointed in the workshop. I didn't leave with any great increase in my passion, power or purpose. I think it was partly because I've done a lot of personal development over the years, and so a lot of it wasn't new to me. However I also thought that a lot more work had gone into marketing the workshop than designing the workshop itself.

A few weeks ago I made the weekly email I send out a bit more personal. I changed the title from "Thought for the week" to "The Word from Pete". I added the salutation at the start of the email so it now says "Hi Jane" at the top of the email. And I changed the signature from "The team at Love Your Business" to my name.

Three pretty simple changes that have led to some startling results, some interesting feedback and one very funny story.

Last week we ran the first ever Love Your Money Workshop - and it sold out. It was pretty amazing for the first one we'd ever done, especially given we only came up with the idea six and a half weeks earlier.

It was the first time I've ever had an event sell out, and at times we've struggled to get numbers to other LYB workshops, so it got me thinking. What was it that had this event sell out? Here's what I came up with.

We do - mainly through the Love Your Business Epicentre Project which aims to end hunger for 10,000-15,000 people in Africa over a five year period. And I've just been introduced to a much better way for us to give (thanks Paul!).

And what's this better way of giving? Its called transactional based giving - and if you give, or plan to, then this is for you.

Seth Godin, author of Purple Cow, all Marketers are Liars and recently Tribes, has come across my desk a couple of times this week. Well, not him personally - and more across my computer screen than my desk - but you know what I mean.

The first instance was a link to Seth talking about Tribes on TED. (By the way, if haven't seen TED before, check it out. I've added 'speaking at a TED conference' to my list of things to do before I die). It's 17 minutes, but worth watching if your interested in leadership. He proposes a new model of leadership made possible by the internet based on a notion of tribes, tribes being any group with a common interest that are connected.

A couple of links crossed my desk this week (thanks Grace!) that are a bit of fun ... But also marketing genius. A brilliant way of building an email database. If you have a couple of minutes, check them out.

World's Greatest Business Mind

Love Your Business Christmas

Here is Priscilla with our recent Australian Achiever Award for excellence in customer service. Priscilla is accountable for service in our business - so it is her job to make sure that our customers are delighted, and hence it's her award.

The kids (and the techies) use the internet very differently than we do.

If you have a look on the right hand side of the address bar of your browser (to the right of www.loveyourbusiness.com) you'll see a little RSS symbol. This allows you to do some pretty cool stuff. It allows for a much more efficient use of the internet.

I could try and explain how it works, but I've been shown a little video that does a much better job of it than I could.