October :: 2010 :: Thinking Home Business | Practical Tips For People Who Work From Home

Richard Branson, London Marathon, pic by Nick J. Webb

Looking today for some inspiration for a blog post, I decided to take a dive into the archives (a standard tip as one of the ways to deal with blogger’s block).

I noticed that back in October 2004 I had posted here about some key principles to which Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson is said to have attributed the brand’s success – Virgin’s “brand values”. The book Business the Richard Branson Way: 10 Secrets of the World’s Greatest Brand Builder, by Des Dearborn.

The principles were:

value for money
quality
reliability
innovation
an indefinable, but nonetheless palpable, sense of fun

So I was thinking, how would a home based business go, applying those principles or taking them as a model set of brand values?

I can’t imagine anyone arguing seriously against the first three: value for money, quality and reliability. So surely we can take them as read.

I’m personally ok with innovation in any business context, including for professionals working from home. For example in my coaching business I am always keen to learn about ways I can coach more effectively from a distance – e.g. I love Skype for that, both the audio and video versions.

Sense of fun as a brand value

But what I found really interesting to be reminded about was the Branson/Virgin commitment to fun.

Then I realized I am reminded of it whenever I get on a Virgin flight, which I do fairly frequently. The crew always seem to have a genuine sense of fun, while at the same time having an air of knowing what they are doing professionally, just as much as I see with crew on planes of their competitors.

And by the way, now that I think of it, I wonder why the crew on the competitor planes don’t give any sense that they are having fun, any sense that they might be feeling – if I can put it this way – that right now the best thing they could be doing in the whole world is helping to make my flight and that of a crowd of others on the plane as comfortable, safe and enjoyable as it could be. As the Virgin crews seem to be able to do.

My sense is that it’s that kind of “sense of fun” the adventure-loving, knighted tycoon Branson means as one of the key Virgin values.

So back to the professionals working from home.

I’m trying to think whether having and displaying a sense of fun (indefinable, but nonetheless palpable) is part of how I do business now.

I certainly feel it is. I know I enjoy the coaching process, including when it is dealing with quite serious business issues. I enjoy helping companies develop and implement their social media strategies. In that sense I have a sense of fun about what I do. And I enjoy continually learning more about coaching and social media and sharing what I learn.

I quite like the idea of elevating the sense of fun I *feel* in doing business to being a key brand value. After all, if I’m not having fun doing business and letting that show, I believe I’m going to have a difficult time trying to help clients look to having a sense of fun in their business – however indefinable, but nonetheless palpable that might be.

What do you feel about all that.?

Is a sense of fun a useful, appropriate value for a business?

Is there anything about working from home that makes it particularly appropriate – or inappropriate?

Can you share an example of how having and displaying a sense of fun might help (or has helped) your business or a business you know about?

Or the obverse – how it has been present but has not served your business, or someone else’s, well?

Sometimes I wonder whether one of the reasons a lot of people balk at the idea of blogging is because of negative memories of what “writing” meant when they were in high school.

A required essay for the TAAS test - image by rutlo, via Flickr, CC When I was in high school, and later as a teacher in high schools, “writing” meant, for the most part, essays.

Personally, I quite liked writing essays, maybe in part because I got better marks there than in, say, mathematics.

But in my teaching days I learned that for many students they were by no means fun and for some a kind of officially sanctioned torture.

There’s another blog post there on the subject of “if I could have my time a school teacher over again…”. But I digress.

Anyhow, if we can assume that, for many people, writing essays was not enjoyable at school, and then if it is also fair to assume that people think of blogging as some sort of exercise in daily essay writing (and assuming for the sake of the exercise that we are not getting too tendentious here) then it is surely not to be wondered at that a lot of people would be quite turned off by the idea of blogging, or at least just see it as a duty or chore, not something to be enjoyed.

Whereas a blog, especially with its scope for embedding various items such as images, videos and audio, as well as writing long or short items, can provide much more scope for creativity, genuine self-expression and sharing – and actual fun! – than any association with school essay writing might suggest.

As I say, my recollection is that I quite liked writing essays. At least I don’t think I *disliked* them.

But that’s actually a trap for me, because I know I have a challenge with writing a blog post that isn’t “up to standard”.

Whose standard? Why, my old high school English teacher’s standard, of course!

Crazy.

So what’s the alternative to this being blocked by any (at least subconscious) perceptions that blogging is like having to write essays on a daily or slightly less frequent basis and that we are supposed to be writing perfectly formed essays?

After about seven and a half years of blogging, my basic answer is “get over it being a chore or something you are going to be ‘marked’ for and make it fun”>

Fun?

How?

Here are a few suggestions I use in seminars, when the subject of “what to blog about” comes up.

1. I ask, could you talk about some product, fact, bit of news relating to your business or your industry for five minutes a day, three to five days a week? They always say Yes. Good, I say, write about that, or if you are completely blocked on *writing* then get a staff member or colleague to record you on video, on a Flip or Kodak Xi8 or such and upload that (nb. it doesn’t *have* to be written, although some words in the post can help – and the person doing the recording has to undertake not to be a critic, because that’s just back to having your essays marked!).

2. I ask, can you write an email? Yes, they always say. OK, i say, pretend you are writing an email to a friend or colleague and them make that your blog post.

3. I ask, when you meet a friend for a coffee, do you have a problem thinking of something to talk about? No, they say. OK, pretend you are having coffee with a friend and share something – just turn that into two or three paragraphs and you have a blog post.

No essays!

Time to take my own advice.

Ain’t it the way?

Well, that’s my two cents on the “why they/we don’t blog, or blog enough” topic.

Does the idea of feeling a need to meet some external standard of a “good” blog post ever bother you? Do you find my “essay memory” theory at all plausible? What do you do to make blogging fun? Oh, and is having fun blogging consistent with blogging being part of your business strategy? Because isn’t business supposed to be serious?

Image credit: “A required essay for the TAAS test” by rutlo at Flickr – CC