My CEO Life

My CEO Life is the blog of Simon Baker, the ex-CEO and Managing Director of the REA Group. He is now building a new business called Classified Ad Ventures. This blog looks at real business problems and provides real solutions - ones that any manager around the world can follow and implement.

In today’s tough economic market more and more people are losing their jobs and struggling to find new ones. A by-product of this new world is that more and more people are becoming entrepreneurs and starting a wide range of new businesses. Now if you don’t have a job and want to be an entrepreneur you can work from home, rent an office or join the new trend of using coffee shops and cafes as your office – the coffice!

As someone who spends too much time working from coffices around the world, I have come to know what makes a great coffice. Here are some thoughts.  A great coffice has the following characteristics…

• Free internet connection
• Great coffee and tea
• Television … so you can watch the sport or news
• Good food for nibbling on
• Power points so that you can plug in
• Not too loud music
• Big tables
• Friendly staff who don’t mind you staying all day
• Beer for afternoon work sessions

Here is a picture of Classified Ad Ventures’ UK team hard at work at one of their coffice’s in St Margaret’s – a cafe called Zorans.

Let us know of any great coffice’s in your part of the world.

I recently wrote an article on one of the other blogs that I run in which I gave my view on a market and how the players are performing in that market.  Now the article was meant as a wakeup call for one of those players who I thought had become a little lazy however they took it as a slight against them.

This got me thinking about how you should give feedback and what could happen if you happen to take it as it is meant.

Firstly, people usually only give you feedback if they really care.  It is not often that someone goes out of their way to tell you what they really think and those that don’t care, tend to avoid it preferring to avoid conflict and not caring if you succeed or fail.

When you are giving feedback to someone, it is important that it has the following characteristics …

• Is fair
• Is genuine
• Is backed by facts
• Refers to specific acts or events that have occurred
• Has specific actions for you to take
• Is delivered in a caring but dispassionate manner

If the feedback is delivered in this manner, then there is a good chance that the recipient will take it well.

Now for a message to work, it has to be received well.  Therefore it is important for the person receiving the message to understand that the message is being delivered with all the best intentions in the world.

The best example I have seen of this recently is from Britain’s Got Talent.  Simon Cowell delivered some salient advice to a young contestant, Shaheen Jafargholi.  If nothing else, you will smile!

Everywhere you turn people are talking about twitter and the tweets that are flying around the internet. It is clear that people are signing up to twitter in their thousands and some people believe it can be used as a business tool – just check out the new book by Joel Comm and Ken Burge called Twitter Power – How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time.

However the question still remains is twitter a nice social media fad or can it be used as a serious business tool?

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I recently received the following email from a reader about becoming an entrepreneur.

I want to become an entrepreneur but I have no prior business experience. I have been researching possible business products and ideas. What is the best advice could you give to people like me with burning desire to become an entrepreneur but have no prior business experience? What are the things I can do to accelerate my learning curve?

Having been an entrepreneur for a while, here are my ideas about what it takes to become one.

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The team at Classified Ad Ventures is proud to announce that we have just launched Jobs Portal Watch – a sister site to Property Portal Watch.

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The last three months have seen the Classified Ad Ventures business go from strength to strength.  We now have a clear mission for mission for the business, a strong team in place and most importantly operations underway.  Here is an update on the business.

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A topic that is often talked about in management magazines and books is communication.  It seems that an enormous amount is written on the topic yet management time and time again get it wrong.  I was chatting with a friend today about his work place and he commented that people are anxious and communications are not flowing.

This got me thinking – what are the do’s and dont’s of great communication from management to the employees.
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Have you ever had the situation where someone who reports to you resigns and you try to talk them out of it?  I certainly have and i have also tried to talk them out of it … often successfully.  However, is this the right strategy or should you just accept the resignation and move on?
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In today’s tough economic environment, everyone is hurting – busineses, employees, their suppliers and of course the customers.  In these tough times, it is important the all parts of the business tighten their belts and the business is seen externally to tighten its belt.

If the company does not do this, it runs the risk of disenfranchising their employees and their customers.
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The team at Classified Ad Ventures is working with companies around the world to help them refine their business models and to accelerate their growth.   One observation we have is that management and owners are often overly enthusiastic about of their revenue growth, expense requirements and ultimately market cap.  Why is this happening and what should these operators think about it?
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