Author: Hilary Steel

What is Business Mentoring?

Posted by | Apr 20, 2014 | |

Mentoring is by no means a new concept but it is one that I feel should be explored if you are looking to further grow and develop both personally and professionally. The mentor will usually be more experienced in areas that are to be explored and improved upon. They use their own experiences to help avoid common pitfalls as well as to push the development boundaries in a trusting environment. It’s easy to stay in your comfort zone, but it’s much more satisfying to jump out of it and grab opportunities that will change the way you and your business performs. Just having a competent sounding board can make all the difference as can guidance on enhancing skills you already have and acquiring new ones. A mentoring relationship challenges you to push yourself and hopefully become the best version of yourself. A mentor may use coaching methods to facilitate this change which will bring out those often hidden skills people are afraid of unleashing. A mentor won’t come in to your business and work for you, but they will be able to assist you improving performance and in turn efficiency. If the relationship is to work, there has to be mutual trust and respect and the direction of avenues explored are introduced by the mentee. There are many benefits of a mentoring relationship to both the mentor and mentee. A mentor...

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Magazine Publisher? No Experience? No Problem

Posted by | Apr 20, 2014 | |

If you really want to achieve something, I am a firm believer that you will. There is no point starting out in a half-hearted manner, it takes passion and commitment to see an idea through to fruition. As Editor of the Kent Women in Business Magazine I am often asked about my own publishing background. When I tell people that my first position working for a magazine was as Editor of this one, their faces tend to drop. It doesn’t seem real that you can launch a magazine, get it in to retail outlets across the county and have a healthy list of people who subscribe annually without any formal training… You don’t need any specific qualifications to start your own business, you need to start with an idea and work towards making it happen. Anyone who is an entrepreneur will tell you this. So there is nothing different about me branching out in to unknown territory and deciding that I would edit a 72 page glossy magazine that I would launch just four months after announcing its conception. The same business principles would apply. I like to think that I embark on each project with the same childlike enthusiasm I had when playing make-believe as a child. It’s this fearless sense of freedom that pulls me through when things get a little rocky. The ‘formula’ we used when...

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Business Mentoring – and Me

Posted by | Apr 18, 2014 | |

Business Mentoring for me has been a crucial part of my own business and personal development. It was back in 2012 in a planning meeting with my Business Partner Sue that I first spoke of my desire to work with a Mentor as I felt I was ready to take things to the next level. I realised that having someone on the outside looking in to our business activities would add fuel to the fire and encourage me to ‘up my game’ with a clearer plan in mind. Unsure of where Mentors ‘hang out’ I looked to my local network and had a couple of meetings with two potential ‘candidates’, although they were both professionals in their respective fields and had more experience than me there was something holding me back from taking it further. It wasn’t until I met the Mentor I now work with that I understood what it was that I was looking for. Bev James has an impressive track record in Business and is currently, MD of the Coaching Academy, Co-Founder of the Entrepreneur’s Business Academy with James Caan and author of the Best Seller ‘Do it! Or Ditch it’ – A book that encourages you to ‘turn ideas in to action and make decisions that count’. When I read, ‘Do it! Or Ditch it’ I found myself arguing with the author, it really got me...

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Business going Swimmingly?

Posted by | Apr 16, 2014 | |

Like many people I have decided to take a look at the amount of exercise I was or wasn’t doing and have joined a gym. So far, in the last eight days I have been four times and I have to say I am really enjoying it. After reconnecting with my faster heartbeat I go for a swim. As I have been going at the same time every morning, (6.30am) the same people tend to be there and it didn’t take long to work out the routines they have for their morning exercise. Swimming, for me, means going up and down the divided lanes, (slow, medium or fast) until I have had enough or hit the target I set for myself. Then it’s treat time and I go to the Jacuzzi to gather my thoughts and get ready for the day ahead. I love this moment, it’s relaxing and anyone ‘people watching’ me would notice that I am smiling. This morning I was at the end of my own ‘routine’ and I found myself mesmerised by two groups of three women who were in the ‘slow’ lane who were ‘bobbing’ up and down the lane while chatting as though they were in a coffee shop having a good old catch up. In the ‘medium’ lane was a guy of about sixty happily swimming up and down doing about 25 lengths and in the...

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Performance Appraisals

Posted by | Apr 12, 2014 | |

Performance appraisals are common practice in most companies and although there are many different methods for gathering the data there is a real need to ensure that they are used in a productive way. Employees are a company asset, productive employees directly affect the company’s bottom line, so it makes sense to consider appraisals as an extremely important business tool. When I worked in the corporate world, I dreaded the meeting based around my 360 appraisal. It was a chore that I couldn’t wait to get out the way and I practiced hiding that glazed look in my eye and pretended to be interested. This is totally the wrong attitude and I vowed never to endorse that kind of feeling from anyone who would work with me in my own company in the future. Is there value to a performance appraisal? There is if you make sure there is! Appraisals, when used in the positive are an opportunity to; Review past performance and gauge where an employee is at that time Allow for future planning and development to be mapped out Set goals and targets and plan how they can be achieved Identify areas where further development is required Sow seeds for longer term development If there are negative aspects of performance to be addressed and they are kept to this one yearly meeting the knock on effect causes further damage. Yet,...

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