I am a great lover of fruit (you could delete ´of fruit´ if you wanted to…) and one of my pet peeves is that when you buy it from the supermarket it is either rock hard or going over, with no in between. So, you buy it hard and ripen it but by the time you get to eat it the juice has ´gone´ and its dry.

 
Recently, my intrepid web developer Andy and I changed our morning practise. We´ve taken to walking to the MacDonalds in Asda just before they stop doing breakfasts and acquiring some very awesome coffee and a McThingy with sausages, egg and something resembling cheese in it. This aside, the behavioural change has created some unexpected advantages:
 

• we tend to get some sales type work done before we go, so the day is always producing business (even whilst we drink coffee)


• the coffee break allows us to discuss strategy and action plans away from the distraction of the office


• the walk to Asda acts as essential exercise, helping oxygen to the brain and actually getting us off our otherwise stationary backsides


• I get to purchase fruit every day, allowing me to pick what´s perfect without having to buy it to ripen

The learning point here is that a seemingly simple behavioural change can often make a significant difference to working output when you put all the bits together. We´re more relaxed too!

For the last few months we have struggled to achieve what we want in terms of training course bookings. I guess we have the eternal small company cash trap:
 
I need to spend money on advertising & brochure distribution but I need the turnover/ cash flow to do so.

 
Consequently, like many companies in this field, we tend to cycle through boom and bust according to cash flow. Recently the NHS, perhaps our largest market, entered its own cash crisis, as you´ve probably read in the media. This created a very serious situation for us because bookings dropped off just as we really needed to be reaching more people (and consequently needing more cash). It got very bad indeed (entrepreneur speak for ´the children are being sold as slaves next´).
 
It was massive action or finish and so we embarked on a non-cash-based turnaround programme. What I am delighted to report is that we have now spent the last 3 weeks consistently beating targets and with an average of around 7 course bookings per day. Anyone running training courses will tell you that this is phenomenol. Our secret… you must be joking!
 
However, the learning point to share is that what we did this time could have been done at any stage but somehow we remained ´blinkered´. It´s put us in our strongest position for about 2 years because now our business level is not related to our expenditure on marketing. Think about it… is there anything you have been putting off or making excuses for that could simply turn on the taps? What´s in the way, real or perceived? Get rid of it and wake up, just as we have done.

The hunt is over! You may recall, or not, that I have been on the hunt for a digital voice recorder with certain minimum specs, namely:
 

• ability to convert in Dragon Simply Speaking with high accuracy


• enough memory flexibility to record bucket loads on highest quality


• stereo

 
Although the requirements seem quite basic it has proved to be a difficult things to find. They either tend to be excellent at sound quality and Dragon but with limited memory or vice versa. Well, I have the answer…
 
The Sony ICD MX20 is the beast in question because not only does it get 5 stars with Dragon but it also takes Memory Stick Duo Pro, allowing me to just get more sticks for my hungry capacity needs. I´m about to buy one so I´ll let you know how it goes!